The Rachathewa landfill site is located 30km east of the Bangkok Metropolitan Area. When the landfill was open, it received approximately 3,500 tons (or 16,667 cubic meters) per day of municipal solid waste. This represents about 40% of Bangkok’s daily waste.
Landfill sites can emit huge quantities of methane gas directly into the atmosphere harming the environment and affecting local air quality. There is currently no regulatory or contractual requirements for landfill gas (LFG) collection or combustion in Thailand and unregulated landfills can also result in potentially harmful leachate entering water systems or affecting local ecosystems.
The Rachathewa landfill is Thailand’s first sanitary landfill. Sanitary landfills are sites where waste is isolated from the environment until it has completely biodegraded biologically, chemically and physically – meaning harmful leachate discharge is prevented. Landfill gas projects generate renewable energy by extracting the methane that occurs during this remediation process and uses it to generate clean electricity.
The Project’s developer, Jaroensompong Corporation, has installed a LFG collection system and 1MW electricity generator at the Rachathewa site. Recovered LFG is utilized as a fuel source for the generator. Any gas in excess of the amount required for power generation is flared. The generated electricity is sold to the Metropolitan Electricity Authority under a power purchase agreement. The project is expected to reduce GHG emissions by approximately 470,000 tCO2e over ten years through combustion of the collected methane and displacement of grid electricity produced by fossil fuel based plants.
The Rachathewa landfill gas project contributes to sustainable development locally by;