GE Jenbacher Gen-sets for South African Landfills

South Africa’s first landfill methane gas-to energy projects, powered by GE Energy’s Jenbacher generator sets, will be commissioned at two sites near the city of Durban on the country’s east coast in early 2007. The plants are in the municipal region of eThekwini, which in Zulu means “in the place of the bay.”

The plants, at the La Mercy and Mariannhill landfills, will serve as renewable energy reference projects, providing much-needed electricity to the municipal grid. Meanwhile, funds from the sale of carbon credits – which was the key to making the project economically viable –also will be used in part for community upgrades.

For the La Mercy and Mariannhill power plants, GE supplied two containerized gen-sets to the projects’ contractor, Envitech Solutions (Pty) Ltd of Benoni, South Africa. Envitech Solutions installed the Jenbacher units and gas extraction equipment on behalf of Durban Solid Waste (DSW), which operates the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality’s solid waste disposal and owns both landfill sites.

For La Mercy, Envitech Solutions installed a Jenbacher JGC 312 GS-L.L. gen-set and for Mariannhill, a JGC 320 GS-L.L. unit. Electrical output for the JGC 320 unit is 1064 kW and 526 kW for the JGC 312 unit. Electrical efficiency for each unit is 40.8% and 39.1%, respectively.