Anaergia Inc. (Anaergia) announced that it is providing technologies, engineering, and process design for a new facility that will convert food processing waste into renewable energy at PepsiCo’s Simba Chips plant in Johannesburg, South Africa. The new facility will allow this food processing operation to reduce its emissions and manage waste sustainably. It will also reduce operating costs and enhance resiliency by generating carbon-negative energy to help PepsiCo achieve its net-zero emissions goals. Construction on the new facility began in January.
Anaergia is supplying its proprietary high solids anaerobic digestion technologies, and partnering with Tecroveer, a South African wastewater engineering company, which is providing project execution and power generation technology. The facility will convert up to 12,677 tons (11,500 tonnes) of food scraps, fryer waste, and wastewater sludge into 800 kW of renewable electricity each year. The facility will also provide natural fertilizer for PepsiCo’s agriculture division. The facility will be a useful reference for Africa as it diverts waste from landfill disposal, maximizes energy value from both waste and wastewater sludge, and converts digestate into fertilizer.
Anaergia has already sold a similar system to one of PepsiCo’s facilities in Portugal. These projects at its facilities will help PepsiCo reduce its Scope 1 emissions and manage waste sustainably, reduce operating costs, and enhance resiliency by generating carbon-negative energy to help PepsiCo achieve its net-zero emissions goals. “Leveraging synergies between the waste and the wastewater from food production maximizes energy generation and avoids methane emissions into the atmosphere, a major cause of climate change. This is achieved when we use the waste to make renewable energy,” said Andrew Benedek, chair and CEO of Anaergia. “One of the most hopeful signs in the battle against climate change is the desire of multinationals like PepsiCo to voluntarily invest in the optimization and decarbonization of their facilities, and Anaergia is proud to be able to support PepsiCo’s efforts with our unique technologies that maximize the renewable energy produced from the solid and liquid waste.”
