Dubai Municipality has signed a contract with Canada’s Green Energy Solutions to treat landfill gas from the emirate’s landfill site at Al-Ghusais. Green Energy Solutions will collect and treat the methane gas from the landfill by burning the gas safely.

The contract will run for a period of 15-20 years, after which the land will be transferred back to the municipality and would be suitable for other uses such as landscaping or a golf course.

Green Energy Solutions will bear the full cost of the project. An application for carbon credits from the project has been submitted. The approval process is expected to take about one year.

The project sponsors intend to monetise carbon credits from the scheme to finance the project. Dubai Municipality will be entitled to a certain percentage of the carbon credit value while the company will take the rest.

According to a study carried out by Green Energy Solutions, the site holds enough methane gas over the next 10 years to make the project viable.

While the agreement currently only covers the capture and treatment of gas, this may be extended to include power generation at a later date. Under this option, methane from the landfill site would be burned to produce electricity.