Pakistan's first waste-to-energy plant gets licence

It will have modern incineration-type generation facility

ISLAMABAD: In line with efforts to promote renewable and domestic resources of energy, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has approved the grant of power generation licence to Lahore Xingzhong Renewable Energy Company Limited.

The company will set up Pakistan's first waste-to-energy plant with 40-megawatt production capacity in Lakhodair, Lahore district. It will deploy a state-of-the-art incineration-type generation facility and the most suitable waste-to-energy technology.

"The project will reduce the city's municipal solid waste by 2,000 tons a day to generate electricity and is seen as a silver bullet to address the municipality's waste issue and meet energy needs," said a statement issued on Monday.

In this regard, Nepra has already announced an upfront tariff of 10.007 US cents per kilowatt-hour for waste-to-energy projects based on an operational period of 25 years with overall capacity cap of 250MW.



The share of each province and the federal territory has been kept at 50MW each.

"A successful implementation of the project will pave the way for other such initiatives to solve pressing waste disposal problems and address challenges of limited space for landfills and gas emissions, resulting in cleaner cities and a healthy life," the statement said.

A 24-month construction period has been fixed for such power plants. For protection from environmental hazards, power producers will obtain necessary approval from relevant government agencies.

In Pakistan, more than 20 million tons of municipal solid waste is generated with annual growth of 2.4%. All major cities - Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, etc - are facing enormous challenges in tackling the problem of urban waste.

Thousands of people die every year due to waste-related diseases. Considering the environmental issues, most of the countries in the region have already announced the tariff for municipal waste power plants and they are getting dual benefits ie disposing of the garbage and generation of electricity.