Drehid Landfill ‘Gas Utilisation Project’ officially opened by Pat Rabitte, Irish Minister of Communication, Energy and Natural Resources.
Following Clarke Energy announcing the award of the contract for Bord na Móna’s Drehid landfill gas power plant the facility was officially opened on the 7th April 2014.
The Irish Minister of Communication, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte, was there to formally inaugurate the project at the landfill site.
The Irish Drehid landfill facility opened in 2008 to manage up to 360,000 tonnes of residual waste, including municipal, commercial and industrial waste. Bord na Móna has now taken its operation it a step further.
After the landfill was up and running, Bord na Móna started working on a ‘Landfill Gas Utilisation Project’ that would create renewable energy from the waste that was brought into the site. At the site 6,000 tonnes of methane is burned and turned into carbon dioxide and water. When vented into the atmosphere methane is a 21 times more hazardous greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Using the methane to produce renewable energy thus has a positive impact on the environment.
Clarke Energy’s Irish operations have supplied 4 of GE’s containerised Jenbacher JGC420GS-LL gas engines for this project to produce a total of 5.6MWe of renewable power, which is the equivalent of powering more than 8,500 standard homes. Jenbacher engines are known to deliver high efficiency and reliability when operating on challenging gases such as landfill and biogas. The design and installation of the landfill gas utilisation system was focused on ensuring maximum noise reduction and minimising the emissions in the local environment.
Clarke Energy is proud to contribute to delivering renewable power in Ireland.
Speaking at the official opening of the Drehid landfill gas utilisation plant John Curley, Clarke Energy’s General Manager stated “Every county council and municipal authority should be harnessing landfill gas which can be used for generation of renewable base-load power – rather than a by-product of the landfill which is destroyed without economic benefit.” John Curley went on to say “landfill gas should be utilised for energy production and such projects should be prioritised for grid connections in order to take full advantage of available landfill gas.”
