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Water Companies Are Hugely Dependent on Energy to Treat Water

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Water Companies Are Hugely Dependent on Energy to Treat Water THE FUTURE OF INFRASTRUCTURE CREATING OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE THREE WAYS TO CUT ENERGY USE Water companies are hugely dependent on energy to treat water and pump it to and from their customers, costing them a lot of money and potentially impacting on the quality of their services. Head of Process Engineering Pascal Harper looks at three ways to make water processes more efficient so that they use less energy as a result. he water industry is very services to their customers, having a energy hungry. Remarkably, big impact on their overall resilience as much as one per cent of all by tying up money that could be better energy consumed in the UK is spent on improving infrastructure. 1% used to treat sewage. And that Many believe that Brexit is likely to of all energy results in big bills for water exacerbate things too. consumed in the companies and their customers along Water companies can off-set some UK is used to treat T wastewater with the emission of millions of tonnes of their energy use by making their of carbon. own energy through renewables or by With energy prices in the UK on turning wastewater sludge into biogas the rise, this heavy dependence is to power combined heat and power reducing UK water companies’ ability engines. But these aren’t always cost- to deliver affordable and reliable efficient or realistic options. THE FUTURE OF INFRASTRUCTURE CREATING OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE OPERATIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FOR THE UK WATER INDUSTRY Change in total greenhouse gas emissions from KgCO2e per megalitre treated 2015–16 to 2016–17 (%) 321 192 Severn Trent Water 3.0 242 263 Dwy Cymru Welsh Water 3.3 218 263 Yorkshire Water 12.1 257 229 United Utilities 1.4 290 140 Scottish Water** – 233 303 Wessex Water 13.5 225 141 Thames Water 36.5 252 191 Northumbrian Water 14.6 332 361 Anglian Water 7.8 389 329 Southern Water 3.0 393 321 South West Water 6.4 574 143 Northern Ireland Water* 18.7 WASTEWATER WATER 2015–2016 2016–2017 *Northern Ireland Water Annual Report & Accounts 2016/17 Source: discoverwater.co.uk/energy-emissions **Scottish Water Sustainability report 2016 ***Irish Water use approximately 598GWh of energy per year THE FUTURE OF INFRASTRUCTURE CREATING OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE To really drive down energy use — and become more resilient to things like energy price hikes and supply interruptions — water companies must look at ways to improve energy efficiency. Here are three innovative ways how. 1/ LEARN FROM OTHER INDUSTRIES’ ENERGY EFFICIENCY WE'RE HELPING A PAPER For decades, the manufacturing MILL DISCHARGE 65% and pharmaceutical industries have LESS WATER BACK INTO been using statistical process control THE ENVIRONMENT. methods, a branch of mathematics, — to intelligently measure and monitor their production systems to make them more efficient. It is a transferrable approach. including chlorine doses in water For example, in the water industry networks, pumping station levels and too much dissolved oxygen (DO) in booster pressures in potable mains, to an activated sludge plant can lead to name a few. wasteful electricity consumption. BY ENCOURAGING However, too little oxygen reduces the quality of effluent produced. This 2/ REUSE INDUSTRIAL COMPANIES fine balance is difficult to maintain INDUSTRIAL WATER TO REUSE THEIR EFFLUENT using current water industry control methods as they do not take into By encouraging industrial companies WATER, WATER COMPANIES account multiple variables such as the to reuse their effluent water, water WILL HAVE TO SUPPLY, TREAT concentration of what enters a system, companies will have to supply, treat and or equipment wear. Through statistical pump less water, cutting energy use and AND PUMP LESS WATER, analysis, which AECOM is currently avoiding the need to upgrade treatment applying within the water industry, works and networks. We are working CUTTING ENERGY USE AND it is possible to intelligently manage with a paper mill to develop a new AVOIDING THE NEED TO oxygen levels to break down sewage system that both recovers water and as efficiently as possible — optimising fibre from its main process and reuses UPGRADE TREATMENT WORKS energy use. treated effluent as water as part of its AND NETWORKS. This approach gives stretched paper production process. Using this operational and maintenance teams system, the paper mill will discharge — the foresight to prioritise and direct less water back into the sewer or their resources toward solving environment and reduce supplied water issues before failures occur, avoiding by a massive 65 per cent. potential regulatory penalties. Water This means industry can avoid companies can also use statistical treating larger volumes of wastewater control methods to determine average to increasingly high standards as failure rates to inform whole life cost required by regulators — a highly decisions and benchmark equipment, energy-intensive process — while leading to better capital investment continuing to meet discharge consents. risk management decisions— for The knock-on benefit for water example, does process equipment companies is that they too have to brand ‘A’ cost more in whole life treat and supply less water. This terms because it needs more manual provides existing treatment works intervention or energy than brand and networks the extra capacity to ‘B’, despite being cheaper to buy? cope with future demands such as Statistical control can be applied to population growth without having to any control variable, not just DO, spend money on costly upgrades. THE FUTURE OF INFRASTRUCTURE CREATING OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE 3/ INVEST IN MORE EFFICIENT KIT Investing in more energy efficient equipment is another way to tackle high energy use. For example, water companies use a lot of electricity to pump air into wastewater, which is needed to treat it. Microbubbles, or miniature gas bubbles, speed up sewage breakdown because they have a large surface-area-to-volume ratio. In partnership with the University of Sheffield, we are testing a fluidic oscillator device, which rapidly pulses air through conventional wastewater treatment diffusers to generate microbubbles, without using more energy. Fast vibrations caused by the fluidic oscillator ‘flick’ air bubbles off the diffuser into the water before they increase in size — a key problem for standard systems. The technology can be easily fitted to existing and new-build wastewater treatment plants. While still in development, the results indicate a 50 per cent improvement in the rate of oxygen transfer. This significantly reduces the amount of energy used to breakdown the sewage, drastically cutting costs and carbon emissions. CLICK TO SEE A VIDEO ON WAYS TO CUT ENERGY USE. THE FUTURE OF Investment in infrastructure has the power to alleviate today’s INFRASTRUCTURE economic distress and create opportunities for tomorrow. CREATING OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE infrastructure.aecom.com.
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