Forbes: What Prevents Conversion of Kazakhstani Waste into Energy

Baku/15.02.21//Turan: "Waste-to-Energy" or energy-from-Waste (hereinafter - WTE) is a process of obtaining energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from waste incineration. Waste is usually burned in special waste-to-energy plants that use heat from a fire to generate steam and generate electricity or heat for heating.

Today, there are more than 2 thousand large WTE facilities in the world, and the largest number of WTE facilities are located in Asian countries. On the territory of the CIS, only in Azerbaijan there is one functioning WTE plant, the largest in Eastern Europe, which began its work in 2012.

As Forbes.kz writes, at present, more than 120 million tons of solid household waste have been accumulated at 3,500 landfills in Kazakhstan, and today, on average, only 15% of waste is recycled in the country. In order to resolve this issue, Kazakhstan plans to develop WTE technology by attracting investors.

It was announced that the first auctions for the construction of such plants in six cities of Kazakhstan are planned to be held among investors in March 2021. To support the development of WTE, a mechanism for purchasing energy produced on a guaranteed basis will be used, similar to what is already in place in Kazakhstan for electricity produced from renewable energy sources. That is, the new WTE facilities will be guaranteed to purchase a predetermined amount of energy at a fixed rate for 15 years.

According to government data, the marginal auction price (tariff) for electricity generated from waste incineration will tentatively amount to 102 tenge ($ 0.24) per 1 kWh, which will be knocked down by potential investors during auctions. Note that the tariff for solar energy today is 35 tenge ($ 0.084) per kW / hour, for wind energy - 22 tenge ($ 0.053), and for coal electricity, the tariff is 7-8 tenge ($ 0.017-0.019) per kW/hour. -0-