Adaptive and dynamic policy making for sustainable recovery of various resources from wastewater streams. A case study from Amsterdam.
IWA Search Format: Literature
Towards A New Decision Support System for Design, Management and Operation of Wastewater Treatment Plants for the Reduction of Greenhouse Gases Emission
This paper presents the development of an ongoing research project aiming at setting-up an innovative mathematical model platform for the design and management of WWTPs. The final goal of the project by means of this platform is to minimize the environmental impact of WWTPs through their optimization in terms of energy consumptions and emissions, which can be regarded as discharged pollutants, sludge and GHGs.
Energy Efficiency Drivers in Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Double Bootstrap DEA Analysis
The results show that the variables with a significant influence on efficiency are the chemical oxygen demand concentration; plant capacity; rate of used capacity, which positively affects efficiency; weight of industrial customers, which exerts a negative impact; and aeration system, with a negative impact for turbines. This article suggests the adoption of an effective control tool to monitor the costs, drivers and energy expenditure of water utilities.
Study of published WWTP energy data – more than 500 WWPTs
In this report representative energy data from several countries was
gathered by a team to create a reference database. Best practises and
best-case scenarios for benchmarking were identified. The information was
retrieved from several sources such as journals, reports, direct communication
with the stakeholders, mandatory EU registers etc. The team was able to
gather energy data from 588 wastewater treatment plants(WWTPs).
A guide for the selection of municipal wastewater treatment processes to facilitate decision making, with a focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions (in Spanish)
This Selection Guide facilitates preliminary decision making regarding the most appropriate process to treat municipal wastewater. This Process Selection Guide was designed to support the evaluation of sanitation projects from a Climate Change Mitigation approach that is conducive to Sustainable Development, although without neglecting criteria for compliance with Mexican environmental regulations and technical or economic feasibility.
This Descriptive Brochure and its supplementary MS Excel © book are supporting tools to evaluate the possibilities of treatment trains in municipal wastewater treatment plants. The recommended processes and their combinations reduce gaseous emissions maximally and show technical-economic viability.
Modelling the bioenergy potential of municipal wastewater treatment plants
The present paper deals with designing a tool to answer the following research questions:
Which bioenergy potentials occur in different plant types? Which mass and
energy flows are related to the specific potentials? Which utilisation processes for
the potentials can lead to a high energy recovery efficiency of WWTS? Preliminary
analyses with the designed tool were focused on estimating the level of electric and
thermal energy self-sufficiency of different plant configuration scenarios including
or excluding digester gas and/or sludge utilisation units. First results based on the
level of self-sufficiency and associated energy and disposal costs show that a
digester gas and sewage sludge utilisation should be considered when designing
future WWTS.
Carbon extraction for energy recovery – Compendium of best practices for advanced primary treatment
In this report the results of literature research and comparison
with data of case studies of full scale enhanced primary treatment units
are shown and compared to each other. Specific indicators for
the comparison are defined followed by identification of available
alternative technologies for primary treatment at municipal
wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).
WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND DISCHARGE – Danish Center for Environment and Energy
This report presents the status of methodological development within the sub-sector 5.D Wastewater treatment and discharge. Focus of the report is to present a COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) mass balance for the Danish wastewater treatment plants, verifying the country-specific methane emis- sion factor, and the resulting level of methane emission from anaerobic sludge digestion, at the Danish wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). The latter requested for by the UNFCCC expert review team.
Energy Recovery from the Water Cycle: Thermal Energy from Drinking Water
For a specific case, the effects of cold recovery from drinking water were analyzed on three decisive criteria: the effect on the GHG emissions, the financial implications, and the effect on the microbiological drinking water quality. It is shown that cold recovery from drinking water results in a 90% reduction of GHG emissions, and that it has a positive financial business case: Total Cost of Ownership reduced with 17%. The microbial drinking water quality is not affected, but biofilm formation in the drinking water pipes increased after cold recovery.
Future-oriented Technologies and Concepts for an Energy-efficient and Resource-saving Water Management
This brochure gives an overview on joint research projects of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which initiated the funding measure “Future-oriented Technologies
and Concepts for an Energy-efficient and Resource-saving Water Management” in 2012. Results show that the water-energy-nexus gives the crucial incentive for new energy and resource efficient solutions.