Cape Town switched on pioneering gas-to-energy plant by powering over four thousand households. Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that the new gas-to-energy plant will generate enough electricity to power 4,300 households by converting landfill gas to power at the Coastal Park Landfill.
Mayor of Cape Town powered-up the new electricity generation plant on Wednesday, Nov 12, 2025 together with the Member of the Mayoral Committee for Urban Waste Management – Alderman Grant Twigg and Member of the Mayoral Committee for Energy – Alderman Xanthea Limberg.
The City of Cape Town has invested R93 million in the Coastal Park Landfill gas-to-energy plant and will invest a further R82m to expand the infrastructure at more landfill sites over the next three years.
These initiatives have been set to pay for themselves in time thanks to the reduced bulk electricity purchases from Eskom and the sale of carbon credits. A total of R36 million in carbon credits has already been generated by reducing gas emissions at City landfill sites.
Considering this, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that it was exciting to power-up the landfill gas-to-power plant at Coastal Park Landfill. They are just getting to begin with these win-win projects, which produce electricity, reduce emissions, and generate carbon credit revenue to pump back into infrastructure and waste management.
In this way, Capetonians are getting plenty of public value from these gas-to-power operations, which they will keep expanding over the coming years at other landfills.
The City of Cape Town has dug perforated pipes or ‘wells’ into landfill sites to extract methane gas, in order to convert landfill gas into electricity. The gas is then channelled as fuel to produce electricity and reducing methane emissions.
Alderman Grant Twigg stated that at Coastal Park Landfill, the City of Cape Town’s waste-to-energy project will generate 1.3 million kWh per month. Out of which 1.2 million kWh will be fed into the Cape Town grid.
This is enough power to supply more than 4,000 households. As the remaining power will be used to run operations at the landfill facility by generating further savings and efficiency for ratepayers.