Renewable Energy for Waste Water Treatmen Plants (WWTPs)
The RENEWAT project will adapt to a treatment plant several renewable energy sources, such as solar panels and mini-wind power plants, integrating them with an “intelligent management system” that will coordinate the commissioning of the tasks of the treatment plant with the availability of renewable energies. In this way, the optimal combination of these energies will be used according to the available resources and the activity of the treatment plant will be adjusted to the amount of energy they are generating at any given time, optimizing to the maximum the energy mix that will feed the plant. In addition, this “intelligent management system” will more precisely adjust the energy input needed at each stage of purification, improving energy efficiency.
According to preliminary studies, the decrease in energy dependence on the grid will exceed 30%, which will reduce a quarter of the final cost of treated water. This management system will also provide environmental advantages such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (about 45 tons of CO2 less each year, the equivalent of planting more than 1,500 trees, for every 100 KW of renewable energy that replaces that from the grid).
This project, supported by the EU through the LIFE+ program and in which ESAMUR (Regional Entity for Sanitation and Wastewater Treatment of the Region of Murcia) also collaborates, is being tested in the Archena treatment plant, Murcia, and can be replicated in practically all the treatment plants, choosing in each one the ideal mix of renewable sources depending on their location.
This research offers a huge potential for reducing polluting gases, since, taking into account that in the EU there are around 16,000 wastewater treatment plants that consume around 10,000 GWh/year of electricity from the grid and generate the emission each year of more than 27 million tons of CO2, applying this technology would prevent more than eight million tons of greenhouse gases from being discharged into the atmosphere.
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