30 April 2013
By Ben Messenger
Managing Editor of Waste Management World magazine
Following years of delays preliminary civil works have begun on a waste to energy facility in the village of Venkatamangalam, India which will use gasification technology to process municipal solid waste (MSW) from Tambaram and Pallavaram municipalities, according to a report in The Hindu.
To mark the start of construction, a ‘bhoomi pooja‘ ceremony was reported to have been performed at the 50-acre site located around 15 km from Tambaram in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
According to the report the Rs 1 billion ($18.5 million) project a public private partnership which will operate on a design, built, operate and transfer (DBOT) basis and is expected to be complete by mid-2014.
The plant is reportedly been designed to process some 300 tonnes of solid waste per day and generate around 3 MW of electricity from the syngas created by a waste gasification process.
Operations
Explaining the plant’s operation municipal officials explained that waste brought to the site would be segregated into biodegradable, recyclable and other inert waste. Wet waste would be dried with blowers to remove moisture and reduce its weight by 50%.
The report said that the waste would then be sieved, shredded and subjected to a thermalisation process to create syngas which would be used to generate electricity.
The by-products from the waste gasification process would be either used for creating ‘eco-bricks’ or dumped in scientific landfills.
According to the report officials claimed that no part of the process would result in any form of pollution to land, water or air.
Finance
The facility is reported to be being developed by Mumbai based infrastructure developer, Essel Infraprojects and Tambaram Municipal Solid Waste Private Limited, under a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) created for the purpose – Essel Pallavapuram.
According to The Hindu, K.M.R. Nissar Ahmed, Pallavaram’s municipal chairman said that the SPV would also be in charge of operating and maintaining the facility, as well as landfill sites, for 20 years, Mr. Ahmed told presspersons here.
K.M.R. Nissar Ahmed, Pallavaram municipal chairman, said of the total project cost,
Ahmed is also reported to have said that around Rs 200 million ($3.7 million) of the total cost of the facility would be covered by a grant under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission – a huge city-modernisation scheme launched by the Government of India’s under Ministry of Urban Development.
The rest of the funds are reported to have come from Essel Infraprojects, the lead partner in the project.
The chairman is also reported to have said that even after the commissioning the plant, the municipalities of Pallavaram and Tambaram would continue to engage in primary waste collection.
The waste generated and collected in the two towns will be transferred to the plant, with the municipalities paying Rs 500 ($9.30) for every tonne of waste treated at the facility.
Parthapratim Ata, general manager, Essel Infraprojects, was reported to be confident of completing the project on time and begin generating power by the middle of next year