Trash Mountain to Provide Power in Addis Ababa

A huge heap of trash is the newest power plant in Ethiopia: Samuel Alemayehu, a Stanford engineer from Ethiopia, turned the big problem of waste management in booming Africa to an even bigger benefit with Africa’s first “waste-to-energy” plant.

Africa is the world’s fastest-urbanizing continent, and millions have been helped out of poverty by the boom. But most countries found themselves trapped with dangerously large mountains of urban garbage. This innovation could be part of the solution.

The Reppie plant in Addis Ababa – Ethiopia’s capital city with an unstable landfill the size of 36 football pitches – will not only turn waste into electricity and save valuable space but will also reduce the release of toxic chemicals and greenhouse gas emissions.

Samuel Alemayehu says the plant, which meets EU emissions standards, will provide 30% of the local household energy needs, incinerating 1,400 tons of trash each day. He plans to build similar waste-to-energy plants in Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon, Senegal and Djibouti.

“We hope that Reppie will serve as a model for other countries in the region, and around the world”, says Zerubabel Getachew, Ethiopia’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations in Nairobi.

Reppie is part of Ethiopia’s broader plan to build a “climate-resilient green economy”, where they plan to invest $2 billion annually through 2030 into growing the renewable energy sources in the country.