The hidden energy cost of your daily water use
Do you know how much energy it takes to treat the water you use every day?
Way more than you think!
As we saw in the previous article, wastewater treatment plants are essential for both the environment and public health, but they come with a hidden cost: they consume massive amounts of energy!
➡️ Treating 1 cubic meter of water takes enough energy to keep an LED bulb light on for 100 hours 💡*
➡️ A plant serving 100,000 people uses as much electricity as 500-1500 households 🏠*
Where does all that energy go?
- Biological aeration: the hungriest process, responsible for 50-70% of total energy use of the treatment plant. Microorganisms require oxygen to break down major pollutants in wastewater, such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.
- Pumping and water movement: keeping everything flowing takes power. Water needs to be pumped and distributed to ensure proper flow through the different treatment stages.
- Sludge treatment: by transforming waste into something useful. Sludge, a key byproduct of wastewater treatment, must also be managed. It contains a high amount of water and valuable nutrients, which can be recovered for energy production or other uses.
The good news? We can slash this energy footprint!
Wastewater plants can today even generate energy instead of just consuming it by turning sludge into biogas. Imagine treatment plants that power themselves, or even generate surplus energy! The new frontier is turning wastewater treatment plants into true biorefineries, producing not only energy but also valuable bioproducts for the market.
➡️ Stay tuned for our next article about the new EU Directive boosting energy efficiency and climate-neutral wastewater treatment by 2045.
* For some optimized and large-scale plants, the energy calculation used is realistic, but this cannot be applied to all cases. Efficiency varies based on the plant’s specific characteristics and should be evaluated using additional factors, such as energy use per unit of pollutant removed, and by analyzing consumption across different treatment stages.
Sources: https://doi.org/10.2166/wpt.2017.006 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.07.043
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