Bee’ah, a leading environmental management company, in partnership with Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, is to develop a cutting-edge waste-to-energy plant in Sharjah. The announcement was made during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017. Diverting as much as 300,000 tonnes of solid waste from landfill each year, the project will help Sharjah reach its “zero waste-to-landfill” target by 2020, and the UAE deliver on its 2021 goal of diverting 75% solid waste from landfills.   Bee’ah and Masdar signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate in the development of new energy projects. The facility will incinerate up to 37.5 tonnes of solid waste per hour to create 30 megawatts (MW) of energy.

This will add more power to what is produced by Bee'ah's auxiliary waste-to-energy project, which will eventually produce a total of 90 MW and will be supplied to the Sharjah electricity grid. “Today marks the first venture in the realisation of the partnership that we announced with Masdar last year. The cutting-edge Waste-to-Energy plant in Sharjah is a concrete example of what this strategic partnership will deliver to the UAE and the communities that we serve. We, at Bee'ah, have always been driven by our mission to make the UAE an icon of environmental best practices, and this plant will help us achieve our ambitious environmental goals for the Emirate,” said Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of Bee’ah. “The agreement signed today will lead to more projects and bold initiatives that will help the partnership to ensure a sustainable and green future for the UAE.”

Established in 2007, Bee’ah collects approximately 2.3 million tonnes of waste from nearly one million households in Sharjah each year, diverting around 70% of its collected waste to its recycling waste management facilities from landfill, said the company. “As one of the leading renewable energy developers in the Middle East & North Africa, we are proud to enter into a partnership with Bee’ah that will both diversify our clean energy portfolio and help commercialise sustainable solutions to Sharjah’s and the UAE’s waste management challenges,” said Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar.

“With GCC countries having among the highest rates of per-capita waste production in the world, sustainable waste management solutions are both critically important and a clear business opportunity. Masdar will combine its proven expertise in renewable energy project development over the last ten years with Bee’ah’s track record in environmentally responsible waste management, to deliver a project that will catalyse further investment in waste-to-energy infrastructure in the UAE and beyond.”