UK-based waste-to-energy firm, Naanovo, has entered into a partnership with a Jamaican company to establish a power plant that will convert waste into electricity.
The project, which needs an investment of between $140m to $180m, will be headed by Anthony Fiddy, managing director of Naanovo UK, and Jamaican businessman Mark Dennis and his family.
Naanovo UK managing director Anthony Fiddy said he is positive about the partnership.
"We have formed the company and I have had meetings with all the relevant parties and they have all agreed to support the project. It's now a question of putting the project together," Fiddy added.
The power plant, which will be located to the west of the landfill site in Riverton, Kingston, will be set up under a build, own, operate and transfer agreement.
The agreement will see the project being transferred to the Jamaican government after 25 years.
Around 300 people are expected to be employed during the construction phase, with 250 jobs created when the plant is in operation.
In 2009, the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica and Cambridge Project Development and its partners signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of two plants using new technologies to generate up to 65MW of electricity from waste at the Riverton dump in Kingston, according to a report by the energy ministry.
The two waste-to-energy plants, which are yet to be constructed, are expected to save some $60m of the fuel importation bill per year.
Riverton City disposal site in Kingston offers "the potential for several 300t per day process drives'" the report notes.
"The conversion of the disposal site into a world class waste-to-energy facility will require extensive design and development works, which are focused on population growth trends, land use policy, transportation logistics and the increasing diversity of wastes," the report said.
