New Landfill Gas-to-Electricity Projects in South Africa

Environmental impact assessments will be conducted by design, engineering, and management consultancy WSP Group for two proposed landfill gas extraction power projects in South Africa. One of the projects, the Emfuleni municipality, will extract and use landfill gas to produce electricity expected to reach up to 2.8 MW. Other projects located in Cape Town could generate up to 9 MW of electricity.

The proposed projects fall under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) listed under the Kyoto Protocol which allows project owners to generate additional revenue through the sale of carbon credits to developed countries.

The country’s eThekwini municipality is already operating a registered landfill gas-to-electricity project from its Durban CDM project. The municipality signed an emission reduction purchase agreement with Trading Emissions PLC for the sale of about one-million tons of Certified Emissions Reductions.