Delhi is set to get the country’s first commercial waste-to-power plant of 16 Mw capacity, which will convert one-third of the capital’s garbage into the much-needed electricity for 6,00,000 homes.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today laid the foundation of the Timarpur-Okhla Municipal Solid Waste Management Project, which will initially generate 16 Mw power by using nearly 2,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste.
The clean energy plant established by Jindal Ecopolis with an investment of Rs 200 crore is expected to be operational in the next 12 to 16 months. In terms of scale, this plant will be one of the top 10 in the world. The largest such waste-to-power plant is in Paris which processes 5,000 tonnes of waste a day.
Delhi currently generates an average 8,000 tonnes of solid waste daily. The plant in Okhla aims to process one-third of the waste, which will be provided by the MCD and NDMC free of cost. “Though, initially we will process nearly 2,000 tonnes of waste, but we will later be in a position to process as much as 4,000 tonnes,” said Indresh Batra, managing director, Jindal SAW Ltd.
Dikshit said plans were afoot for a similar venture in Ghazipur. Asked about a failed attempt in the 1990s to set up a waste management plant in Timarpur, Dikshit said it involved technology imports, which subsequently did not suit the needs of the waste there. “That project was initiated over a decade back, with technology imported from a European country. But the calorific value of waste produced here was different from that in Europe and the plant turned out to be a mistake,” she said.
