The French Development Agency (AFD) will contribute a loan of between R60-R70 million, to an environmentally friendly energy project, in line with an agreement signed on Tuesday 10 October with the eThekwini municipality.

“The project will generate electricity through a fermentation process of the waste, collected from three neighbourhoods in the city of Durban,” the French Embassy said.

“During this process, methane is released, then converted into electric power by generators and fed directly into the city's power grid.”

The project will be developed at three landfills in the greater eThekwini Municipality, namely in Marianhill, Bisasar Road and La Mercy.

Gas recovery wells and generators are currently under construction in these areas.

The embassy said the potential total electricity output generated by the project will be up to 10 Mega Watts and is set to reduce South Africa's production of greenhouse gases.

“The project will enable South Africa to earn carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism. These carbon credits will be sold through the Prototype Carbon Fund managed by the World Bank.”

The project is one of the first in South Africa to be eligible for carbon credit trading.

The AFD supports development projects in the fields of energy efficiency, service delivery and job creation through support of small and medium enterprises.

The agency plans to contribute over R3.5 billion to local projects as part of the Framework Charter for Partnership for 2006-2010, recently signed between France and South Africa.

Source: BuaNews