Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said the State's first waste to energy plant in Hubballi will be fully commissioned by January 2027 after he visited the facility at Gabbur. He said the initiative began when he held the Coal portfolio and follows the Prime Minister's project in Varanasi that converts dry waste into charcoal. The plant forms part of the Green Charcoal project and converts dry waste into torrefied charcoal.

NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVNL) is implementing the project, fully funded by NTPC. The company is executing the project at a total cost of Rs 1.57 bn and construction began in 2024 after handover of eight acres of municipal land and receipt of government clearances following sanction in 2020. The first trial run has been completed successfully.

The plant will be able to process 200 tonne (t) of dry waste every day and is designed to convert between 30 per cent and 35 per cent of that waste into Green Charcoal, which will be used with coal in thermal power plants. During a 72-hour trial, the unit processed 541 t of dry waste and produced 211 t of Green Charcoal. NVVNL will operate the facility and will spend Rs 110 mn annually on maintenance, reducing the municipal corporation's expenditure.

The minister said Hubballi-Dharwad generates an average of 500 to 600 tonnes of solid waste daily, of which about 60 per cent is dry waste, so the plant will help reduce reliance on landfill sites. The project is expected to create employment for over 200 people and will initially require grid power, with gases from the torrefaction process later used to lower electricity consumption. Officials explained that torrefaction heats dry waste between 200 degrees Celsius and 320 degrees Celsius in an oxygen-depleted environment to produce environmentally friendly Green Charcoal.