Waste plant set to generate power from next year
By Arvind Nair
ELECTRICITY from waste will become a reality in Qatar when the country’s first integrated waste management system comes on-stream by the end of next year.
The Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre (DSWMC), being built by Keppel Seghers (KS) near Mesaieed, would produce 40 mega watt of electricity.
Electricity will be more than sufficient to run the plant’s various machineries and meet the demand of the complex, housing its over 400 employees and their families. The surplus would be fed to the national grid, a KS official indicated.
The plant, being built for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Agriculture by the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), is now 40% complete.
The plant would have separation and recycling facilities, waste-to-energy unit, composting facility, engineered solid waste landfill, construction and demolition waste recycling and accommodation and administration buildings and a mosque.
Besides, Keppel Seghers would also build four waste transfer stations in different locations in Qatar to handle and treat domestic solid waste from the entire country.
One collection plant would be built close to the airport area. Another will come up in the west of Doha and a third site will be located at Industrial Area. The fourth new collection station will be at Al-Khor. The existing one in Dukhan will continue to be functional.
When the facilities are ready, all the commercial and household wastes will be collected and transported by trucks to one of the five transfer stations. There, they will be compacted and reloaded on to heavy load transport trucks to be moved to the DSWMC.
According to the KS official, this is the first of its kind, fully integrated plant, to be built in the Middle East and one of a “few” in the world.
The plant would also produce recycled water but this would be used within the compound which is spread over 300 hectares in the south of the country, the official said.
The facility is designed to treat up to 2,300 tonnes daily of mixed domestic solid waste and up to 5,000 tonnes a day of construction and demolition waste.
According to the official, this is enough to meet the needs of the country for the next 20 years. However, if necessary, new lines could be installed to increase the capacity by up to 30%.
The plant would be operated for 20 years by Keppel Seghers, a Singapore company.
The integrated waste treatment plant is designed to maximise recovery of resources and energy from waste by using state-of-the-art technologies, the official indicated.
However, the official pointed out that producing electricity and water was not the main objective of the facility. They are merely byproducts.
Four MK III Dano Drums of KS will separate the organic waste from the inorganic and oversized waste fraction, containing metals, glass and plastics. The organic rich fraction goes to the composting area, where small pieces of metals will be removed from it by means of magnets and eddy-current separators.
The remaining organic part will be fed into the composting plant for the production of compost and energy. The energy-rich fraction goes through a recycling stage before being incinerated in the KS’ waste-to-energy plant to generate electricity.
“In total, the separation and recycling activities will remove about 50% of the collected domestic waste stream which otherwise would have gone directly to the waste incineration plant or to landfill”, the official said.
source::Gulf-Times
