ENERGY RECOVERY IN WASTEWATER TREATMENT STATIONS (WWTPs)

A Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) or Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) is a facility whose objective is to reduce water pollution through some procedures to acceptable limits for the receiving channel.

This process consumes a large amount of energy, in Spain, it accounts for approximately 2% of the total energy demand.

Currently, water purification already produces renewable energy (more specifically biogas) from the treatment of the sludge generated in the purification process. This generated gas is used in cogeneration systems in the plants themselves.

However, there is still untapped potential in treatment plants where the potential energy of the water leaving the plant can be recovered.

These facilities are very interesting in terms of economic profitability since a constant flow of water circulates throughout the day and also the plant is constantly consuming energy. For this reason, they are self-consumption facilities connected to the electricity grid with repayment terms of around 5 years.

Considering a useful life of 25 years, the installation of micro hydraulic turbines in treatment plants is an economically and environmentally favorable solution since large tons of CO2 would no longer be emitted into the atmosphere.

Proof of this, the General State Administration through the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, and specifically, through the General Water Directorate, has recently published a report on “Improvement of the Energy Efficiency and Integral of the Wastewater Treatment, Regeneration and Reuse Plants ”where in point 3.2, it talks about promoting the installation of micro turbines or pico turbines to take advantage of the existing potential hydraulic energy in urban supply and sanitation networks.

If you have a project to recover energy through micro hydro turbines and you need information or a quote, please write to us and we will answer you as soon as possible: info@powerturbines.eu

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