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Feasibility Study of a energy self-sufficient wastewater treatment plant

Rising energy costs, climate change and the uncertainty of a reasonable recycling of polluted sewage sludge has led to a rethinking of the operators of municipal wastewater treatment plants. A CUTEC survey using the example of the Eurawasser wastewater treatment plant Goslar, northern Germany, shows the inevitableness of energy and waste disposal self-sufficiency for these plants in the long run. This concept study points out the economic compatility of energy self-supply and the major task of a sewage plant: the safe and effective treatment of wastewater. In order to achieve this goal the process of sludge treatment (utilization of fermentation gas, energy consumption) and the local condiditions of renewable energy sources (heat of wastewater, photovoltaics, wind- and hydropower, fuel cells, biogas, co-fermentation, thermal recycling of sewage sludge) are of the same importance.