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Clean Development Mechanism Landfill Gas Project: A Case Study
Enviros Consulting acted as the lead technical consultant for the first phase of Africa’s first Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project to generate electricity from landfill gas at three landfills in the Durban region of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.
 As well as producing enough electricity to power 9,000 suburban homes, ultimately rising to 10MW as gas extraction rates are increased to full capacity, the project is generating Certified Emission Reductions (CERs, better known as carbon credits) that the Durban City Council (eThekwini Municipality) will sell on world markets. Overall credits equivalent to nearly 4m tonnes of CO2 will be sold.
The landfill gas extraction and utilisation project originated five years ago, following a meeting betweenstaff of the World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) and the Mayor and city manager of the council at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. The following year, project manager, Lindsay Strachan of Durban Solid Waste (the council’s waste management section), commissioned Enviros Consulting to undertake technical and design work for the scheme. At that time it was the largest CDM project in the world, and it remains Africa’s first landfill gas electricity scheme and largest in terms of CO2 reduction.
Preliminary stages undertaken by Enviros included initial gas yield modelling and preparation of a project design document for the World Bank that included a baseline CER assessment. Technical specialists from Enviros’ climate change team prepared validation submissions and economic appraisals were provided by environmental economists to allow potential funding organisations to be identified.
Successful completion of this initial package of work was critical in enabling the project to proceed to design stages.
Three landfills will ultimately supply gas for the generation of electricity. Bisasar Road is the busiest landfill on the African continent, established in the urban area of Durban during the early 1980s and undergoing major improvements during the late 1990s.
The site accepts well over 5 000 tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) every business day of the year. It is now being operated as a containment landfill, with progressive restoration in phases, and will continue to provide for the needs of the city well into the next decade.
Mariannhill Landfill receives about 800 tonnes of MSW every day and is a remarkable site. Opened in 1997, within a residential area, the site was the first of the council’s new generation landfills. Restoration of the site using only indigenous South African species has resulted in it being declared a national nature reserve, which receives hundreds of visitors each year.
La Mercy Landfill is smaller and more rural, located some 30km north of Durban by the Indian Ocean coast. The site is presently being closed and restored, having received between 300 and 400 tonnes of MSW per day for many years. An environmental impact assessment process for the three sites, including two appeals, took nearly three years to complete.
Component one of the project involves generation of electricity at Mariannhill and La Mercy and began in March 2007. Enviros managed the design of the landfill gas extraction scheme and was responsible for tendering duties for the contract for gas utilisation and the procurement of a second contract for gas utilisation equipment at the two sites.
Local consultants Wilson & Pass Singh Inc. acted as sub-consultants to Enviros throughout design and construction stages, working up details and providing day-to-day site supervision of construction. Since mid 2006 SLR has also provided sub-consultancy services to Enviros. Jenbacher reciprocating gas engines have been supplied by Envitech Solutions with Organics Limited, which operate with a turn down ratio of 40 percent, providing maximum flexibility for operation of the gas extraction system.
Enviros provided continuing technical support to the council in negotiations with the World Bank, related both to financing of the project and measurement, agreement, verification and sale of CERs from combustion of methane. These will displace burning of fossil fuels and be sold on international markets. It is this financing through the CERs that has provided financial security for the project and has enabled it to go ahead. City manager, Michael Sutcliffe, said the project was important as part of eThekwini’s strategic vision to be more sustainable and to tackle climate change. “Part of this is about taking advantage of aspects of the Kyoto Protocol, which allow for carbon trading. Without this, projects like ours would not be financially viable,” he explained.
The World Bank’s PCF will initially purchase 700 000 tonnes of carbon credits from the Mariannhill and La Mercy sites. This projected income stream enabled the French Development Bank to fund the project, loaning £4million (GBP) to the council.
Since the initial 2004 agreement to sell carbon credits, their world price has more than trebled and the council has begun negotiations with potential buyers for a further 1.5m tonnes of credits from expansion of “component one” sites and from the second component of the project at Bisasar Road Landfill. Strachan said that while initial profits from the project would be modest, they would soon rise to become a significant source of revenue for the city of Durban, as income from the larger landfill came online. Total estimated profit to the city will bein excess of 400m rand (£30million GBP), but Strachan emphasised the importance of the “environmental profits” that the project will generate. “We can all notice in our day-to-day lives that the climate is changing, and sadly Africa stands to be severely affected by such change. This project alone will reduce burning of coal in South Africa by some 80 000 tonnes each year – a large truck load every hour of the day.”
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At the project launch ceremony on 20 March 2007, after electricity generation had begun and CERs had been validated and verified independently, the World Bank’s Noreen Beg congratulated eThekwini on taking a lead in Africa and on the world energy stage. “The World Bank is keen to promote successful solid waste management practice and in this case there are multiple benefits – clean energy and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.
Mayor Obed Mlaba said that eThekwini is committed to being environmentally responsible in its infrastructure development efforts: “Waste can be a resource and not just a costly liability. Recycling can cover all aspects of waste production and an excellent place to start is with projects to productively use methane gas from landfill sites to generate power,” he said. “With the World Bank we times that of CO2, controlled burning of each tonne generates 20 tonnes of carbon credits as CO2 equivalents.
It is this multiplier effect that makes landfill gas schemes particularly effective in meeting carbon emission reduction targets when compared with hydroelectric or wind turbine systems (“the methane kick”), for example. Enviros Consulting has worked in South Africa since 1992, on landfill gas and leachate projects, and on energy efficiency. During that time four leachate treatment plants have been designed, including the first thatched leachate treatment plant in the world at the Mariannhill site and another at Cape Town’s main landfill. Later this year another large leachate plant will be commissioned at Durban’s new landfill at Buffelsdraai, which opened recently.
Perhaps surprisingly, South Africa is the world’s seventh highest emitter of greenhouse gases, on a per capita basis, but the present project and several more that are following will start to make a difference by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and generating green energy.
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