Waste management company Greenstar is to invest €12m over the next five years in a bio-energy strategy which will see the company produce electricity from landfill gas.
Greenstar will sell the energy to green energy group Airtricity, which will distribute it through the national grid. Both Greenstar and Airtricity are subsidiary companies of NTR.
The announcement was made as the company opened its first gas-to-energy plant at its landfill, KTK, in Brownstown, Co Kildare. Greenstar says this will produce enough green energy to meet the requirements of a town of the size of Naas for one year. The plant involved an investment of over €3m.
Greenstar says revenues from the KTK plant are expected to reach €1.7m in 2006. Greenstar plans to commission six landfill gas-to- energy plants over the next five years. These plants convert landfill gas, generated as part of the engineered landfill process, and use it as an energy source.
Landfill gas is the natural by-product of the decomposition of solid waste in landfills and mainly comprises carbon dioxide and methane.
