The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is extending a 16 million euro sovereign loan to the government of Georgia to benefit the city of Tbilisi and its EBRD-backed Green Cities programme. The loan will enable the Georgian capital to continue modernising its solid waste management and financing infrastructure, converting the gas produced by solid waste into electricity.
The loan will be complemented by a 4 million euro grant from the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership (E5P) Fund. Donors to the E5P Fund include the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the TaiwanBusiness-EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund, the United States of America and the European Union, the largest donor.
Thanks to this financing, the city of Tbilisi will be able to refurbish existing cells at the Didi Lilo landfill and install a landfill gas collection, flaring and utilisation (landfill gas-to-energy conversion) system. The production of renewable energy from landfill gas is expected to reach almost 30,000 megawatt-hours (MWh)/year.
The implementation of the gas-to-energy facility will also improve solid waste services for the city’s 1.5 million citizens and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 75 per cent, contributing to climate change mitigation.