Jakarta to Begin Turning Garbage Into Electricity at Bantar Gebang Next Month

Jakarta Globe, Arientha Primanita, February 11, 2010

A scavenger wading through a sea of rubbish in search of recyclables at the 125-hectare Bantar Gebang garbage dump. (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

The Bantar Gebang integrated waste-treatment facility in Bekasi is scheduled to begin testing its electricity generating capacity next month, the Jakarta Sanitation Agency said on Thursday.

Eko Baruna Subroto, the agency’s head, said in a panel discussion about the capital’s waste and flood problems that the facility would start by generating two megawatts of electricity from the methane released by the waste on March 8.

“The two megawatts of power produced from the waste treatment facility will be the first part of the total targeted production of 26 megawatts,” he said.

Eko said the facility, the first of its kind in the country, would begin generating its 26 MW capacity next year.

The March 8 trial launch will be attended by Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo, Bekasi Mayor Mochtar Mohammad and Minister for Public Works Djoko Kirmanto, among other officials.

Fauzi and Mochtar last year signed an agreement for Jakarta to use the Bantar Gebang landfill site for the next 20 years. In return, Bekasi would receive a site-usage fee of Rp 103,000 ($11) per ton of garbage from the Jakarta administration.

Two private companies, PT Godang Tua Jaya and PT Navigat Organik Energi Indonesia, manage the Bantar Gebang dump.

Bantar Gebang uses gasification technology and landfill and aerobic digestion waste management. The technology produces material for composting and harvests the expended gas for the biomethane electricity-generating system.

Eko said about 70 percent of Jakarta’s 6,500 tons of daily garbage were taken to Bantar Gebang landfill, with the rest going to the Sunter dump.

He said he hoped the garbage processed at Bantar Gebang would fall to 3,000 tons a day by 2012 and 2,000 tons a day by 2023.

New dump sites in Ciangir, Tangerang, and Marunda, North Jakarta, are planned to absorb some of the excess from Bantar Gebang.

Eko said an agreement between Jakarta and Tangerang finalizing the Ciangir site would be signed next month, with a tender process for its management begun soon after.

Eko said on Thursday that the Ciangir dump would be opened in early 2011, despite reports that the site would begin operations in the middle of this year.

The Marunda site will also be managed privately, with an initial investment of Rp 600 billion. It is planned to be opened by 2012.

The site is located on 12 hectares in the Special Economic Zone in Marunda, and the facility there will use technology similar to Bantar Gebang’s.

Muhammad Sanusi, a city councilor from Commission D, which oversees development, said the council supported the new waste-treatment facilities to help handle the capital’s ever-increasing waste problems.

He said he especially supported the Marunda site because it would be the first to be wholly owned by the city.

“With independent management, the city can implement and decide on the technology needed to handle the waste problems,” Sanusi said.