Mexican President Felipe Calderón today toured Monterrey’s newly expanded landfill gas-to-energy project where he praised GE Energy’s Jenbacher gas engine power plant as “a model renewable energy project” for Latin America.
The 12MW project converts the Simeprode landfill’s gas into electricity, which is used to support the solid waste facility's operations as well as Monterrey's light-rail system during the day and city street lights at night. The electricity is also being sold at a discount rate to seven municipalities in the greater Monterrey region.
The landfill, operated by Bioelectrica de Monterrey, a subsidiary company from SEISA and Gentor, is located in Salinas Victoria just north of Monterrey, Mexico’s third largest city and capital of the northeastern state of Nuevo León. The landfill gas plant is one of the most powerful of its kind in Latin America.
The renewable, on-site power plant is part of an ongoing solid waste modernisation effort, well-suited to developing regions where there is little or no access to transmission grids. The power plant, which was recognised as a model alternative energy project, qualified for funding from the World Bank’s Global Environment Fund to help reduce the region’s methane gas emissions.
“The financial viability of this project underscores our belief that Monterrey’s landfill gas plant will serve as a model renewable energy project for other countries throughout Central and South America,” President Calderón said at today’s ceremony to mark the landfill project’s expansion.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and primary constituent of landfill gas. Reducing Simeprode’s annual site emissions by about 420,000t of CO2 equivalents by capturing and using the waste gas for power generation offers significant benefits to the region and additional revenues for the project owner through the sale of carbon credits.
“This landmark project is supporting the state of Nuevo León’s – and Mexico’s – goals of expanding the use of landfill gas and other renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuels to help reduce our industrial emissions,” said Nuevo León governor José Natividad González.
The landfill plant’s expansion features five of GE Energy’s containerised J320 GS Jenbacher engines capable of generating a combined 5MW of electricity. The units were installed next to an existing 7MW 'first phase' of the plant powered by seven J320 GS Jenbacher engines, bringing the total to 12 engines. GE Energy’s gas engine distributor for Mexico, Smith Power Products of Salt Lake City, secured the engine order for the plant expansion.
The development of such landfill gas projects is an important alternative energy priority for the region. In Mexico, methane emissions from landfills contribute 10% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Methane to Markets Partnership, a consortium of countries and regional organisations that leverages the collective expertise of the international community to address technical and policy issues and facilitate methane gas-to-energy projects.
“GE Energy is excited to support the city of Monterrey’s landmark landfill gas project and to have a chance to demonstrate the ability of GE’s Jenbacher landfill gas technology to help the Latin American region attain its renewable energy development goals,” said Prady Iyyanki, CEO of GE Energy’s Jenbacher gas engine business.
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