Dubai on schedule to complete world’s largest waste-to-energy project

Dubai has completed 85% of the project for the construction of a waste-to-energy plant that will convert 1.9 million tonnes of the emirate’s municipal waste annually into renewable energy.

Construction work on the Dubai Waste Management Centre (DWMC), the world’s largest waste-to-energy project, is running on schedule with initial operations set to begin by early 2023, Dubai Municipality said on Monday.

In the first phase, the plant will operate at 40% of its final capacity, processing 2,000 tonnes of solid waste per day and producing 80 MWh of clean power.

Upon completion of the entire project, which is expected by 2024, the five treatment lines will be capable of processing 5,666 tonnes of solid municipal waste per day.

Once fully operational, the plant will generate 215 MWh of clean energy that will be fed into the power grid. This will be sufficient to power 135,000 homes. Its capacity will be enough to process 45% of the municipal waste in the emirate which aims to completely divert waste from landfills by 2030.

The construction of the large-scale facility that is located on an area of 400,000 square metres in Dubai’s Al Warsan area began in 2021.

The first commercial-scale waste-to-energy plant in the UAE came into operation in Sharjah this spring. The facility diverts up to 300,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste away from landfills every year, and generates 30 MW of energy.

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