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Veolia Environmental Services Ile-de-France, working with Veolia Environnement's Research and Innovation Department, has thus confirmed its commitment to renewable energy sources. Launched in 2008, the project would represent an investment of €1.6 million, for which it received a subsidy of €300,000 from ADEME, France's environment and energy management agency.
Eight light vehicles and one household waste collection vehicle, all equipped to operate as Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs), now run on Meth'OD® fuel (Méthane 100% Origine Déchets, i.e., methane produced entirely from waste), produced at the Claye-Souilly landfill.

The demonstration unit extracts carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen gas (N2) from the biogas (comprising 45% methane (CH4), 35% CO2 and 16% N2), and then removes its pollutants (siloxanes, etc.), which produces a gas containing 95% methane. The treated gas is then compressed to 300 bar in order to obtain a fuel with the same composition as town gas. It can be used in any NGV. In addition, this biomethane meets the technical and economic criteria for being fed into the natural gas transmission and distribution network.

Two technologies are being tested on the Claye-Souilly demonstration unit in order to validate the most efficient in terms of separating the CO2 and N2 out of the biogas: the VPSA process, which adsorbs undesirable components on porous solids, and a more innovative membrane process. The technology selected will be rolled out on a wider scale to other non-hazardous waste landfills.

The demonstration unit has the capacity to produce 60 Nm3/h of biomethane fuel from biogas collected at a landfill. Due to methane's high energy value (1 metric ton of household waste produces around 200 m3 of biogas or 100 m3 of methane, which is the equivalent of 100 liters of gasoline), this output can meet the annual energy needs of a fleet of 210 light vehicles.

This new energy recovery method of using the biogas produced by non-hazardous waste landfills complements the other Claye-Souilly energy recovery facilities, which produce enough electricity to meet the needs (excluding heating) of a city with 228,000 inhabitants.

From an environmental viewpoint, as biomethane is not a fossil fuel it is considered a renewable energy. In the longer term, using biomethane fuel instead of diesel will avoid emissions averaging 140 g of CO2 per kilometer traveled. For a fleet of 210 light vehicles, each covering 30,000 km a year, that represents an annual saving of 882 metric tons of CO2.

Replacing fossil fuels by new fuels produced from waste helps to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Optimizing the performance of biogas recovery and conversion at non-hazardous landfills and diversifying the methods for achieving this is one of the research programs conducted by Veolia Environnement, which dedicates 70% of its R&D to combating climate change.