Dubai Municipality has recently announced that more than 60 per cent of municipal waste produced will be converted to electricity to power 120,000 homes in Dubai by 2020. This is planned by building a solid waste-to-energy (WET) project at Warsan area in Dubai.

The plant is proposed at a cost of nearly USD 0.7 billions and is expected to treat 1.82 million tonnes of solid waste annually.Swiss company Hitachi Zosen Inova and Belgian construction company Besix Group will construct the facility.

Dubai generates about 8,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day. The plant has the daily capacity to treat 5,000 tonnes of it and generate 185MW of electricity and help bring power to 120,000 homes. This is roughly two per cent of the annual electricity consumption in Dubai.

The plant when constructed will become the ?world?s largest Waste-to-Energy project operating at one site. The construction will begin soon and is expected to be functional before Expo 2020 in Dubai.

The plant is expected to significantly contribute to achieving Dubai's Clean Energy Strategy of providing 75 per cent of Dubai's total power output from clean energy sources by 2050, ultimately reducing the city's carbon footprint.

The combustible will be treated at a very high temperature of 1200 degrees while incombustible material left as bottom ash will be 100 per cent recyclable. Metals for metal industry and other construction products can be recovered from this bottom ash.