Waste to energy in Africa: new trends

The outgoing 2021 was marked by a rapidly increasing activity in waste to energy in Africa: new trends inspired several recent projects. It looks like the continent general interest in waste-to-energy raised significantly. A number of countries expressed their desire to have incineration and pyrolysis.

Waste to Energy International (WTEI) received requests from traditionally active Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, South Africa. What is a new tendency – a significant growth of waste-to-energy calls from sub-Saharan Africa: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya. It is not a coincidence that a huge alternative energy fund, partnered with WTEI, expressed an interest in sub-Saharan Africa namely. The region attracts the sight of serious institutional investors in alternative energy. Their behaviour predicts a bright future for alternative energy development in the region.

Waste to energy in Africa and WTEI

Following the trends, WTEI successfully created a new project in Ethiopia, to build, own and operate a 680,000 tpa municipal solid waste to energy plant. The plant shall produce at least 40 MW of electricity and significantly improve the ecology situation in Addis Ababa. The capital of Ethiopia already has a waste-to-energy plant, Reppie, the first and only one operated in Africa. So, the Koshe plant shall become the second implementation of mass incineration technology in the country. The new plant facilities will provide pre-sorting of the waste for own needs and for Reppie, too. Similar improvements will be made in fly and bottom ash processing systems, to satisfy the two plants common needs.

At this moment, WTEI, together with local developer Covenant Engineering and investment partner OAK, has completed the feasibility study for the Koshe plant. Our team have estimated local conditions, location, layout, equipment of the new plant. The short video below represents a 3D model of the new waste to energy plant.

Together with the esteemed multi-billion technology provider, we have created a technical proposal for the plant, containing CAPEX and OPEX. The final run of the financial model confirmed that the project is feasible and can be successfully funded. OAK works to commence the investments in the next three months.

Current and new projects

Also in parallel, we continue the development of the first waste to energy plant in Egypt, which deserved several publications in our blog. All documents for signing by the government are ready, including the power purchase agreement and concession agreement. As a result, we expect the signing by the relevant ministries early next year and immediate commencement of funding.

In 2021, we also have reached significant progress in one of the biggest African countries. The consortium created by WTEI, have signed the preliminary documents for the construction of a 700,000 tpa plant. We expect the commencement of the feasibility study quite soon.

Therefore, we are looking forward to the future of waste to energy in Africa with great optimism. Having strong investments funds onboard, reliable local partners and worldwide know technology providers, we plan to use raising interest in waste to energy to improve life quality in Africa.