The new plant will operate 8,000 hours a year and provide the generation of 35 megawatts of electricity. According to the administration of the governor of Ulaanbaatar, a public-private partnership (PPP) agreement was signed last month to implement this project, which has become one of the first major initiatives launched under the PPP Law. The contractor is Renshou Sichuan LLC. The plant, designed to burn 1,500 tons of waste daily, will be located on a 10-hectare site in the Morin Giin Davaa area, 12th khoroo of Khan-Uul. The total investment in the project will amount to $206.5 million, and construction will take 30 months, after which the plant will be handed over to the government for 28 years.
Currently, only 11.4% of the waste arriving at the three main landfills of Ulaanbaatar is processed, while 88.6% is sent for burial. This process causes significant methane emissions and poses a threat to the ecology.
The new plant will utilize modern recycling technology that avoids waste burial by incinerating it for electricity generation. In recent years, the concept of "urban mining," which involves extracting previously buried waste and recycling it, has become popular worldwide, contributing to the restoration of ecosystems.
This project has significant ecological importance for Mongolia. The plant will accept not only urban waste from Ulaanbaatar but also garbage from the soums of Zuunmod, Altanbulag, and Sergelen in the Töv province. Additionally, it is planned to transport and incinerate waste accumulated over the past ten years at the Ulaanchuluut and Tsagaan Davaa landfills, which will help improve the environmental situation.
