Nama Water is studying a new waste-to-energy initiative: Oman's national water utility company Nama Water is studying the feasibility of producing biogas from wastewater sludge as a promising waste-to-energy (WtE) initiative, Oman Daily Observer reported on Thursday. The feasibility study will explore and determine the financial and technical aspects of using anaerobic digestion tech to produce biogas from sewage sludge, Nama Water's Chief Process Engineer Intisar al Sulaimi said.

More sludge available: Nama is also developing a management strategy to identify sewage treatment plants suited for anaerobic digestion tech, aiming to complete the framework by the end of the year, Al Sulaimi said.

Oman’s casting a wide net on WtE: The feasibility study follows other initiatives in the same vein which are looking at generating energy using biofuels such as used cooking oil, municipal waste, biomass, and developing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from agri-oils.

And the sultanate believes it has huge potential for growth: Oman is capitalizing on its USD 1 bn WtE potential and already has several WtE projects underway. Its Sharjah plant has the capacity to process 300k tons of waste annually while generating 30 MW of clean energy. The Sultanate also finalized another feasibility study with Be'ah in April for a new plant with a capacity of 4.5k tons of municipal waste which is set to slash the carbon footprint of landfills by 50 mn tons in 35 years. Oman's Wakud is also setting up a fish-waste recycling facility and a vegetable and fruit waste-to-biogas plant, with work expected to begin by 2H 2024.