Waste-to-power plant to comeup near NMKRV College

The waste collected from eight wards in Padmanabhanagar Assembly constituency will be first segregated, converted to biogas, which will then be used to generate power

Soon after the High Court of Karnataka rapped the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for dragging its feet on scientific garbage disposal, a unique project touted as being the first-of-its-kind is being taken up in the city.

According to Yediyur councillor N.R. Ramesh, the project will include a segregation plant, biogas converter and a gas-to-power plant. The ground-breaking ceremony for the plant, which will come up in a vacant land near NMKRV College, will be held on Monday.

The waste collected from eight wards in Padmanabhanagar Assembly constituency will be first segregated, converted to biogas, which will then be used to generate power. The eight wards, Yediyur, Karesandra, Ganesh Mandir, Banashankari Temple, Hosakerehalli, Chikkalsandra, Padmanabhanagar and Kumaraswamy Layout, generate around 32 tonnes of mixed waste. Of this, 11 tonnes is dry waste and 21 tonnes is wet waste.

Mr. Ramesh said that the power plant will be able to generate one MW of power. With this, the lighting needs of seven parks, one lake, one community hall, one primary health centre and one BBMP office in Yediyur ward will be met. “We require 400 kV power for lighting and the electricity bill comes up to around Rs. 1.75 lakh a month. After meeting the lighting needs, the excess power will be sold. We will be able to make a profit of at least Rs. 10 lakh this way,” he said.

He said that seven companies had come forward to buy dry waste from this plant. As of now, the garbage collection and management (i.e., transporting to landfills) is handled through four packages. The BBMP spends Rs. 91 lakh a month on these four packages. “Through the project, we hope, by March next year, not to send waste to the landfills on the city’s outskirts. That way, the expenditure on the packages is expected to come down by 75 per cent as transportation by lorries and compactors to landfills will be eliminated,” he said.

The project will symbolically take off on Monday, and will be fully operational in four months. Four companies will manage and run the biogas-to-power plant, while the BBMP will handle segregation and conversion of waste to biogas. “We will finalise the companies within 15 days,” he added.