India’s first solid waste-to-hydrogen plant will be set up in Pune at a cost of over Rs 430 crore.
Key points
- The plant will be set up by sustainability solutions provider TheGreenBillions Ltd (TGBL), who has entered into a 30-year-long agreement with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).
- It will treat 350 tonnes of solid garbage every day by next year.
- The company plans to produce 10 tonnes of hydrogen daily from 350 tonnes of solid waste.
- The waste will comprise biodegradable, non-biodegradable and domestic hazardous waste and will be segregated at the TGBL facility in Pune using optical sensor technology.
- The wet waste from the facility will be used to generate humic acid-rich bio-fertilisers considered better than conventional bio-fertilisers with low carbon emissions.
- The refuse derived fuel from the waste will be utilised to generate hydrogen using plasma gasification technology.
- Refuse derived fuel (RDF) is produced from domestic and business waste, which includes biodegradable material as well as plastics.
- Non-combustible materials such as glass and metals are removed, and the residual material is then shredded.
- Waste-to-Energy plants are viable only when the plant can process at least 300 TPD, according to the task force report on Waste to Energy, 2014, by the erstwhile-Planning Commission, now known as NITI Aayog. Therefore, WTE plants should be set up in large cities with a population above 2 million.
- Based on this, the project will manage 350TPD waste for Pune, which has a population of more than 7 million.
