Gases from the Vissershok Landfill may soon be powering residents’ homes as the City of Cape Town makes progress with plans to find alternative electricity sources.
The City recently stated that steady progress is being made with its plans to generate electricity from gases at the landfill on the N7. Aside from the City’s efforts to reduce emissions associated with landfill sites Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Waste Management, Grant Twigg, the project will help reduce the reliance on Eskom’s power grid.
According to Twigg the City has budgeted R86 million for the next three financial years for the operation and maintenance of a landfill gas flaring system at Vissershok. He explained that organic matter that decomposes in the landfills forms landfill gas, which is rich in methane.
Twigg says to reduce emissions from the landfill “wells” are dug into the site to extract the gas. A system to convert landfill gas from the Visserhok Landfill into electricity is being designed for implementation around 2024-’25.
The estimated cost of the project is R197 million.
“The wells are then connected to the flare compound, where it will be combusted and in future be diverted to a gas engine to generate electricity,” Twigg added.
The Mayco member said the City was in the process of appointing a service provider to operate and maintain the recently constructed gas well field and flaring system at Vissershok.
“The capacity of the first two megawatts (MW) generation infrastructure scheduled for implementation in 2024-’25 will increase to between 7-9 MW by 2026-’27, depending on gas yields,” he stated. “This will be a significant amount of power that can power up to 6 000 homes by 2027.
