City seeks energy partner

Innocent Ruwende Municipal Reporter
Harare is seeking a partner to invest in the establishment of a waste energy plant at Pomona landfill as the city looks to generate energy through extraction of landfill biogas.

The initiative is also aimed to reduce pollution.

The Pomona dump site has been subject to wild fires that cause choking fumes and are a threat to public health and wildlife.

Environmental Management Committee chairperson Councillor Herbert Gomba said the extraction of the biogas would mean the containment of the fires and using waste usefully.

“We are in the process of engaging a company to partner the city, with a view of establishing a waste-to-energy plant which will generate energy and associated products.

“We are happy on behalf of council that the engagement process, if approved by Government, will result in Harare increasing its waste management fleet, making it easier to collect waste.

“This will free resources to allow us to build a new dump site to cater for the southern parts of Harare,” he said.

Climate Change Management Department director Mr Washington Zhakata said such a project qualifies for the Clean Development Mechanism.

The CDM allows industrialised countries with emission reduction commitments to meet part of their commitments by investing in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries.

“The CDM is aimed at supporting developing countries in achieving sustainable development through the implementation of project activities that reduce GHG emissions, financed by the developed countries.”

“It also endeavours to assist industrialised/developed countries in achieving compliance with their qualified Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emission limit and reduction commitments through investment in clean energy technologies in developing countries,” he said.

Mr Zhakata said his department intends to conduct clean development mechanism workshops for key industry, energy, transport and agricultural players to raise awareness on the process and benefits with regard to sustainable development.

He said the intervention is envisaged to go further into facilitating registration for developed CDM concepts.

The city would also benefit through carbon credits.

A carbon credit is a generic term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide.

Carbon credits and carbon markets are a component of national and international attempts to mitigate the growth in concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Landfills or illegal dumps can pose a hazard and can create space problems and environmental problems as landfills emit potent greenhouse gases as garbage rots away while generating energy from these gases reduces the damage and replaces other carbon generated energy.

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