Pilot scheme to generate electricity from city’s oranges

SEVILLA water company Emasesa is running a pilot project to generate clean energy using the juice from some of the 50,000 orange trees growing in the streets of the city.

It is forecast that this year’s harvest will be 5.7 million kilos which is an increase of more than 35 per cent over last season and disposing of the fruit which drops on pavements all over Sevilla is a problem.

Now, the water company is continuing an experiment whereby some of these bitter oranges are collected and by extracting the juice, electrical energy is created through bio-gas which will then keep the water plant supplied with green electricity.

Approximately 50 per cent of the juice and 50 per cent of the peel are extracted from the orange, and for each ton of orange approximately 500 litres of juice and 500 kilos of peel are generated.

The husks and the part that cannot be used is taken to a composting machine for transformation into compost that is reused in the fields of the province.

The objective is the future use of all the bitter orange production of the city for the generation of clean energy and so far, using waste product, the energy generated in the Emasesa treatment plants in 2020, was equivalent to the annual consumption of almost 5,800 homes.

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