A Japanese company has succeeded in using waste at the Sukawinatan landfill in Palembang to produce electricity for lighting since late 2010, a company spokesman said.
Hendri, a technical officer of PT Gikoko Japan Indonesia, said here Monday the company had since October 2010, succeeded in producing electricity from waste treatment wells at the Sukawinatan landfill.
“Waste from five wells and ten horizontal waste reservoirs has been processed into electricity,” Hendri said.
He said Gikoko had teamed up with the Palembang city administration for waste processing to capture methane gas and build electrical installations.
“Since late last year, we have been able to process materials from waste wells into electric power produced by the system itself, Hendri said.
He added, currently Sukawinatan landfill provides electricity amounting to 120 thousand watts to illuminate the waste disposal location.
The electric lights run for 24 hours a day but can only serve a limited landfill area, and there is not yet enough power to light off-site locations, he said.
We still lack a sufficent number of waste wells, so it is a constraint to develop the electric energy at the landfill, Hendri said.
He explained that ideally they would add about 40 additional waste wells to develop electrical energy.
But so far, only five waste wells have been optimally exploited.
Meanwhile, head of Palembang city sanitation office, Zulfikri Simin expected that PT Gikoko could accelerate the waste treatment efforts so that it would have economic value.
The volume of waste dumped in Sukawinatan landfill every day reaches more than 2,500 cubic meters.
