ADB grants loans for Chinese waste-to-energy projects

US$200 million loan will jump start projects in Chinese cities.

The Asian Development Bank loan will help build at least nine plants capable of converting up to 6300 tonnes of municipal solid waste daily into electricity. The plants are expected to generate around 610 GW hours of electricity a year by 2018.

It gave the loan to Dynagreen Environmental Protection Group, which will use it to help small and medium-sized cities in China turn their mountains of solid waste into renewable energy.

China is the world’s second largest producer of solid waste, generating more than 220 million tonnes a year. Although the per capita production of solid waste in China is only about 20 per cent of the average in industrialized nations, solid waste is expected to grow considerably in small and medium-sized cities where huge population growth is expected by 2030.

ADB said the loan was focused on small-to-medium sized cities because unlike large cities that are implementing waste-to-energy projects through public-private partnerships, smaller municipal governments have difficulty attracting private sector interest, which results in large amounts of untreated waste, leading to harmful gas emissions and soil and groundwater contamination.

Dynagreen is the environmental infrastructure arm of the state-owned Assets Management Company and will develop and operate the facilities under public-private partnership arrangements.