The City of Cape Town says it has budgeted R 86-million for the next 3 financial years for the operation and maintenance of a landfill gas flaring system at the Vissershok Landfill.
This as the City works on plans to generate electricity from landfill gas.
Organic matter that ends up in landfills decomposes in the absence of oxygen and forms landfill gas that is rich in methane.
Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Waste Management, Grant Twigg, says to reduce emissions from the landfill, “wells” are dug into the landfill site to extract the gas.
According to news on the City’s website, a system to convert landfill gas from the landfill into electricity is being designed for implementation around 2024/25, which is estimated to cost R 197 million.
The wells are then connected to the flare compound where it will be combusted and in the future be diverted to a gas engine to generate electricity.
The City says it is in the process of appointing a service provider to operate and maintain the recently-constructed gas well-field and flaring system at Vissershok. It says with the first 2 Mega Watts (MW) generation infrastructure scheduled for implementation between 2024-2025, the capacity will increase thereafter to between 7-9 MW by 2026-2027, depending on gas yields.
This will be a significant amount of power which can power up to 6000 homes by 2027. According to Eskom, 1MW is about enough to power 650 average homes in South Africa.
