Waga Energy starts up French installation

France-based landfill gas-to-energy technology provider Waga Energy has completed the installation of one of its Wagabox units at a landfill in northwestern France operated by Séché Environnement.

Renewable natural gas (RNG) production has started at Séché’s Opal Environnement landfill site. The Wagabox unit there recovers the gas spontaneously emitted by landfilled waste, converting it int an RNG product that can be a substitute for fossil-based natural gas that can be injected directly into the local gas grid to supply homes and businesses, according to Waga Energy.

The Wagabox unit at the Opal landfill can process 500 standard cubic feet per minute of landfill gas. It is able produce up to 120,000 million British thermal units (MMBtu), or 35 gigawatts, of RNG per year, depending on the concentration of methane in the raw gas.

“At its maximum capacity, it can supply around 5,500 households and avoid the emission of 5,800 tons of CO₂ equivalent per year into the atmosphere, through the substitution of fossil-based natural gas in the grid,” Waga Energy says.

Gas emitted at the Opal landfill previously was upgraded by a power engine. The Wagbox unit will “significantly increase the landfill energy production, providing energy that will help to decarbonize sectors such as transport and industry,” the company says.

“This RNG production plant illustrates the Séché Environnement group’s commitment to circular economy and ecological transition of territories and industries,” Séché Environnement CEO Maxime Séché says. “It is part of the group’s decarbonization strategy presented in February 2022, and its ambition to curb its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2030.”

Séché Environnement is a family-owned industrial group with 5,700 employees operating from more than 120 sites in 15 countries.

Waga Energy now owns and operates 18 Wagabox units in France, Spain and Canada, representing an installed capacity of 2.3 million MMBtu (or 675 gigawatt hours per year). Another 16 units are under construction in France, Canada and the United States, the firm says.

Remarks Mathieu Lefebvre, CEO of Waga Energy, “Thanks to the Wagabox technology, the [Opal] landfill has become an RNG producer, and now supplies the local community with low-carbon energy," Waga Energy CEO Mathieu Lefebvre says. "We are delighted about, and proud of, this first collaboration with the Séché Environnement group, a long-standing and recognized player in waste management, strongly committed to fighting global warming and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."