A consortium led by the Swiss-Japanese company Canada Innova announced its intention to begin building a waste-to-energy plant in Morocco by the end of 2026, with full operation expected by mid-2030.
This station, which will be located in Casablanca, will be the second of its kind in Africa, and aims to generate electricity while reducing methane emissions and other environmental impacts caused by the Mediouna landfill, the largest in the kingdom.
On Monday, Canada Innova and its partners signed a concession agreement with the Casablanca city government to implement the project. The consortium also includes Morocco's Nareva Energy and Japan's Itochu.
The company said that when the plant comes online, it will process about 1.5 million tons of waste annually and generate about 115 megawatts of electricity using a combination of waste, solar power, and gas produced from the decomposition of waste in the landfill – enough to supply electricity to nearly one million people.
Reuters quoted the CEO of Canada Innova, Bruno-Frédéric Baudouin, as saying that construction work will begin as soon as financing arrangements, which include borrowing and the sale of equity stakes, are completed, and are expected to be finalized during the fourth quarter of this year.
He added that the Moroccan company "Somagec" will undertake the construction work, and the project is scheduled to take about three and a half years to complete, noting that waste treatment and electricity production operations may begin six to ten months before the completion of construction work.
Baudouin explained that the consortium has also signed an agreement to purchase electricity with the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water, and is seeking financing from Moroccan lending institutions, stressing that the debt will be entirely domestic.
The Mediouna landfill is located on the outskirts of Casablanca and has been causing foul odors and the leakage of pollutants into neighboring agricultural lands for decades, as well as the emission of methane and other greenhouse gases resulting from the decomposition of waste.
Baudouin stressed that the new station could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 20% of Switzerland's total annual emissions, adding: "This is like removing 300,000 cars from the roads."
On the other hand, opponents of this type of station, including environmental experts, climate activists and representatives of the local community, believe that it may negatively affect recycling efforts, and that the fact that most of them rely on burning leads to the emission of fine particles and greenhouse gases.
