Greens support Telangana waste power

Hyderabad: Coming out in support of waste-to-energy plants, environmentalists on Friday urged the Electricity Regulatory Commission to see the private promoters are not treated as commercial entities but as a solution to 90 per cent of the garbage disposal problem.

The city generates nearly 4,000 metric tonnes of garbage daily, and the rest of the state another 3,000 metric tonnes. Providing higher tariff for power generated from municipal solid waste will allow these plants to sustain themselves and reduce pollution, Ms Alia Khatoon, an environmentalist and activist of Basti Vikas Manch, told DC after making a submission to the TSERC at the public hearing on Friday. “Or else, the government should set up its own waste-to-energy plants and deal with municipal solid waste,” she said.

Mr Gade Venkatesh, environmentalist and activist working in the municipal solid waste management sector, said the cost of setting up a waste-to-energy plant is about Rs 10 crore per MW. “By supporting such power plants, more money can be saved as ULBs don?t need to spend on collection, segregation and transportation, compared to higher tariff, if given,” he said.

Advocates and consultants appearing for Shalivahana and Hema Sri, the two waste-to-energy plants that are operational in TS, and several other firms whose plants are in the pipeline, said the Central Electricity Re-gulatory Commission had suggested a tariff of over Rs 7 per unit of energy generated from municipal waste.

Considering the costs involved in setting up plants, segregation, collection, transportation, processing, landfill fac-ility sites etc., the ERC should consider fixing the maximum tariff as per the CERC guidelines, they added.

Commission chairman Ismail Ali Khan and member (technical) L. Manohar Reddy obse-rved during the hearing that they needed to ensure that the tariff hike burden was not more on the consumers.