Climate Fund Managers (CFM) has announced plans to invest a sum of US $38M in waste-to-energy project in South Africa.
The project to be situated in Bronkhorstspruit, South Africa, involves construction of a biogas plant with a 9.8 MW installed power capacity from organic waste. South African company Bio2Watt Energy, are the project’s developers.
The biogas will be produced from the fermentation of organic waste collected in the Gauteng province of South Africa. The gas will be produced by fermenting at least 240 000 tonnes of organic waste per year.
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The heat produced by the combustion of the biogas will be used to generate electricity. Bio2Watt Energy will supply the energy produced to the Rosslyn plant of German car manufacturer BMW in Tshwane, Gauteng. As well as diverting some waste from landfill, the plant will avoid emissions of 48 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, which is equivalent to about 120 million kilometres driven by a passenger car.
“CFM has invested in the Bronkhorstspruit biogas plant through its Climate Investor One and Climate Investor Two funds. The $38.5 million commitment from Climate Investor One and Climate Investor Two for the BBP plant follows an initial investment of $9.77 million in development financing, allowing Bio2Watt Energy to consolidate its project pipeline into a $227 million investment opportunity,” said CFM.
South Africa has a power deficit of about 21 000 megawatts (MW) because demand exceeds supply. This gap continues to widen and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research estimated that the economic costs of electricity disruption in 2019 were at least R59-billion. The generation of energy from waste could address both the waste and energy crises.