A deal to construct a new Cedar Grove Gasification Facility in Barnesville, Georgia has been announced by Georgia Power. The gasification facility will generate 6 MW of electricity from household garbage sourced from the nearby Lamar County Regional Solid Waste Landfill.

The 10 year deal has been secured with renewable energy generator Georgia Waste to Energy Cedar Grove LLC in partnership with America’s Waste to Energy. Georgia Power to buy 100 per cent of the electricity generated by the facility. Plans are already being made to expand the facility from its initial operating capacity of 6MW to 18MW.

Electricity will be generated by the facility through a gasification process which will take municipal solid waste, put it through a thermal transformation process in an oxygen-deprived environment to convert it to steam. The process will not only produce electricity from a renewable resource, it will also significantly reduce the amount of waste that will be going into the landfill.

With the addition of this contract, Georgia Power’s energy portfolio includes contracts with seven qualified biomass and renewable facilities throughout the state that will generate 136 megawatts of capacity, or enough renewable energy to power more than 34,000 homes. These contracts include electricity generated from wood waste, landfill methane gas and hydro. However this deal marks the first contract signed by Georgia Power involving electricity generatied through the gasification process.