from household waste

By the end of this year, JSC Lenenergo will connect to its networks Russia's first active degassing station for a solid household waste (MSW) landfill, Novy Svet - Eco LLC. The Swedish Vireo Energy AB has invested €5.7 million in equipment that will make it possible to obtain electricity from waste. The fuel for the station will be landfill gas, 50% consisting of methane. The Swedes' expenses will pay off most quickly if the generator is assigned the status of a renewable energy source (RES) and receives a high "green" tariff. It is possible that in the future the Swedish IKEA may become a consumer of electricity.

The active degassing station in the Gatchina district of the Leningrad region is the first renewable energy source in Russia that will generate electricity using landfill gas generated during the decomposition of garbage. The project was presented within the framework of the “Declaration of Partnership for Modernization between the Russian Federation and the Kingdom of Sweden,” which was signed in 2011 by Vladimir Putin, then Prime Minister. The investor was the Swedish Vireo Energy AB, which is developing active degassing in Poland and Belarus. In particular, a station with a 2 MW power unit was installed at the Vitebsk solid waste landfill. The core shareholder of Vireo Energy AB is one of the largest investment companies in Sweden, Investment AB Kinnevik (asset value is more than €5 billion), which includes, among other things, the telecom operator Tele-2, the MTG media group (TV channel "STS" Russia), and the Avito website. ru.

The cost of the station is estimated at €5.7 million. The equipment will be installed on the territory of the municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill of Novy Svet - Eco LLC and will occupy an area of 0.3 hectares. The station will include compressor units that will be able to extract methane from waste in a volume of up to 1,800 cubic meters per hour, as well as four gas piston power plants - they will generate electricity from this gas. The generation capacity will be about 4.8 MW, Fredrik Carlman, vice president and director of business development of Vireo Energy AB, said in August.

Through the sale of electricity, Swedes' investments can pay off within four to six years. However, for this, the tariff for “green” energy must be 20-30% higher than the price level on the wholesale market and amount to 4.5-5 rubles per kWh. In order to sell electricity at such high prices, the station must receive RES status, which is assigned to generating companies by the NP Market Council. The station's key client could be Swedish IKEA. However, Vireo Energy AB has not yet confirmed this information.

Currently, only two biofuel stations in Russia have RES status. These are JSC "Industrial mini-CHP "Belyi Ruchey"" in the Vologda region, which produces electricity from waste from wood processing plants, and the biogas power plant "AltEnergo" LLC in the Belgorod region. As a rule, biofuel stations are not registered as subjects of the wholesale market, and they do not participate in the competitive selection of capacity due to its high cost. “This energy is definitely not needed on the wholesale market. If the region needs it, then it can carry out the selection itself, find an investor, guarantee the tariff, realizing that it will most likely be quite high,” said the head of the Council this spring. market" Maxim Bystrov.

Alexey Kirichenko, Boris Gorlin

"Lenenergo" connects "green" energy