Masdar and Bee’ah to build 300,000 tonne waste-to-energy plant in Sharjah

Cutting-edge facility will produce 30MW of total energy from municipal solid waste 

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; January 18, 2017: Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, is to develop a cutting-edge waste-to-energy plant in Sharjah in partnership with Bee’ah, the Middle East’s leading and award-winning environmental management company, it was announced today at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017.

Diverting as much as 300,000 tonnes of solid waste from landfill each year, the project will help Sharjah reach its “zero waste-to-landfill” target by 2020 – and the UAE deliver on its 2021 goal of diverting 75 per cent of solid waste from landfills.

Masdar and Bee’ah signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on the development of new energy projects at ADSW 2016. The facility will incinerate up to 37.5 tonnes of solid waste per hour to generate 30 megawatts (MW) of energy. This will add more power to what is produced by Bee’ah’s auxiliary waste-to-energy project, which will eventually produce a total of 90 MW supplied to the Sharjah electricity grid.

Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of Bee’ah, said: “Today marks the first venture in the realisation of the partnership that we announced with Masdar last year. The cutting-edge waste-to-energy plant in Sharjah is a concrete example of what this strategic partnership will deliver to the UAE and the communities that we serve. We, at Bee’ah, have always been driven by our mission to make the UAE an icon of environmental best practices, and this plant will help us achieve our ambitious environmental goals for the Emirate.

“The agreement signed today will lead to more projects and bold initiatives that will help the partnership to ensure a sustainable and green future for the UAE.”

Established in 2007, Bee’ah collects approximately 2.3 million tonnes of waste from nearly one million households in Sharjah each year, diverting around 70 per cent of its collected waste to its recycling waste management facilities from landfill.

“As one of the leading renewable energy developers in the Middle East and North Africa, we are proud to enter into a partnership with Bee’ah that will both diversify our clean energy portfolio and help commercialise sustainable solutions to Sharjah’s and the UAE’s waste management challenges,” said Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar.

“With GCC countries having among the highest rates of per-capita waste production in the world, sustainable waste management solutions are both critically important and a clear business opportunity. Masdar will combine its proven expertise in renewable energy project development over the last ten years with Bee’ah’s track record in environmentally responsible waste management, to deliver a project that will catalyse further investment in waste-to-energy infrastructure in the UAE and beyond.”

Masdar’s Clean Energy division is a leading developer and owner of utility-scale, grid-connected projects; remote applications providing energy access to communities away from the electricity grid; and carbon abatement projects. Since 2006, Masdar has invested in renewable energy projects with a combined value of US$8.5 billion; Masdar’s share of these projects is US$2.7 billion.

Masdar’s renewable energy projects span the UAE, Jordan, Mauritania, Egypt, Morocco, the UK, Serbia and Spain. The electricity generating capacity of these projects, which are either fully developed or under development, is 2.7 gigawatts (GW) gross.

Elsewhere in the UAE, Masdar is adopting waste management best practices in the development of Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, one of the world’s most sustainable urban developments. Its on-site construction waste management demonstration project reuses and recycles waste building materials from the City’s construction, including metal, plastic, wood and construction aggregate.