Iraq is scheduled to start its first trash-to-electricity experiment next month. The project would use 3,000 tons of waste each day in Baghdad, the country’s capital, to generate energy equal to double the amount that will enter Iraq via Jordan and 2% of Iran’s gas supply.
Karim Azab, Assistant Director General of the Baghdad Municipality’s Department of Environment and Solid Waste, clarified that the project’s investing company will be chosen at the beginning of March of next year. This is because the Municipality has designated the Al-Nahrawan area on the Rusafa side as the location for the project’s implementation, provided that the landfill site is designed in accordance with international environmental specifications and standards. Al-Sabah, the official newspaper, claims.
He emphasized that by investing 3,000 tons of garbage every day, the project, whose implementation would take 24 months, will help save 80 to 90 megawatts.
He said that the Municipality of the Capital is working to invest about 6,000 tons of waste per day through the two aforementioned projects, and that the Municipality is planning a similar project on the Karkh side in the Abu Ghraib region. He said that this project will be announced as an investment opportunity after the lands on which it will be implemented have been expropriated.
The 6,000 tons represent about half of the rubbish that Baghdad discards on a daily basis. Regarding the electricity production from the Nahrawan project, which is expected to reach 80–90 megawatts, this is equal to twice the amount that will be supplied to Iraq from Jordan within the first phase of the electrical connection, which is 40 megawatts, for which contracts were signed two days ago. It is anticipated that this amount will rise to 150 and then 500 megawatts in the second phase.
Remarkably, 90 megawatts is also equal to 2% of Iraq’s entire electrical production from Iranian gas.
