Increased Efficiency of Energy Recovery from Landfill Gas : Waga Energy & Veolia Injecting Biomethane from Landfill into French Grid

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French landfill gas-to-energy technology firm, Waga Energy, has teamed up with environmental services giant, Veolia, to produce biomethane from Saint-Palais landfill.

The Meylan, France based firm explained that Veolia has implemented its Wagabox® technology, to produce biomethane, a renewable substitute for natural gas, injected directly into the natural gas grid operated by GRDF.

The unit now supplie 3000 homes with clean, local and renewable energy while avoiding 4000 tonnes of CO2 emission per year. The Wagabox unit delivers 98% pure biomethane from landfill gas.

"We are very proud of this first collaboration with Veolia, a global leader in optimized resource management. The highly innovative project that we carried out together in Saint-Palais marks a step further toward fighting climate change,” declared Mathieu Lefebvre, President and co-founder of Waga Energy.

The fermentation of organic matter at storage sites produces a complex gas, composed mainly of methane but also air and impurities.

In France, operators have to collect and flare it to avoid greenhouse gas emissions. Some of them, like Veolia, use it to produce electricity through CHP engines. Waga Energy said that as this equipment is no longer sufficient to absorb the gas production it was contracted by Veolia to deploy a new and more efficient recovery solution.

"Our mission is to turn waste into resources: recycled raw materials or energy. This collaboration with Waga Energy is a perfect example. This is also a good example of a circular economy in a territory as about 3000 households are now supplied with clean, local and renewable gas produced from the waste,” said Bernard Harambillet, General Manager of Veolia's Waste Recycling in France.

The result of ten years of development, Wagabox is a breakthrough technology for upgrading landfill gas. Combining membrane filtration and cryogenic distillation, it separates methane from other components and provides a biomethane compliant with grid injection requirement, whatever the raw biogas quality.

The energy yields are three times those of burning landfill gas to generate electricity. Biomethane can be easily stored and transported through existing gas infrastructure.

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