Water (ESAMUR)
ESAMUR is a Spanish regional and non-profit public company responsible of the wastewater treatment management system in the region of Murcia.
It is in charge of 99 Waste Water Treatment Plants and 105 million of m3 is treated every year (1,5 million of inhabitants).
Demo Case objectives
TRINEFLEX approach/method will be applied to the aeration process and to energy supply with the aim of:
- Reduce energy consumption, through digital-twinning of the process
- Increase energy flexibility
- Implement the use of renewable energy
WWTP DESCRIPTION
The main aim of a Wastewater Treatment Plant is to remove solids, fat, sand and organic matter from the wastewater to allow it to be discharged into the environment or reused. The Spanish WWTP treats the wastewater coming from the sewage of the municipality, in order to obtain:
- good quality water;
- a sludge that can be used as a fertilizer since it has a lot of nutrients and organic matter;
- biogas, which is particularly important to reduce the energy consumption in the WWTP.
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ACTIVITIES
TRINEFLEX approach will be focus on the AERATION PROCESS AND DIGESTION ANAEROBIC PROCESS.
The AERATION STEP represents the biological treatment, the heart of any WWTP: a well-balanced number of bacteria and microorganism, degrade the organic matter of the wastewater, transforming in more bacteria, CO2 and H2O. To metabolise the organic matter a high quantity of oxygen is needed, resulting in the most energy consuming operation of the aerobic process. In this case the retention time can take from 5 to 25 hours, depending on the type of process.
The DIGESTION is the process where a part of the sludge is biodegraded by anaerobic bacteria, getting biogas (a mix of CH4 and CO2 basically). Also, this anaerobic process can be defined as a fermentation process.
Digestion occurs in big tanks named digesters, where the sludge stays for more than 20 days, with a temperature of 35°C. Furthermore, the result will be stabilized sludge which can be used as a fertiliser.
The foreseen activities are:
In a wastewater treatment plant, the equipment is entirely electrical. The only case in which heating is needed is with a sludge digester.
One of the Trineflex main objectives is to reduce the electrical consumption peaks by at least 35%. Considering the aeration process, it takes up the most energy with 2.638 Kwh/day, representing the 65% of the energy consumption.
To achieve the energy saving goal URSALEO and AIMEN will build a Digital Twin for the aeration process. The Digital Twin will be supported through new biosensors built by IMDEA aimed at getting information on the microorganisms in the plant. Moreover, devices to measure the oxygen transference will be installed to collect relevant information about the energy consumption levels.
Actual energy consumed in the plant is provided by natural gas and partially by biogas produced through digestion process of WWPT sludge.
Specifically, to increase the use of solar energy, photovoltaic panels will be installed, producing 209 kWhp. Moreover, the biogas production will be enhanced in the digestion process through the addition of co-substrates and the cogeneration equipment will be improved for the biogas.
Essential Equipment
In the WWTP there are some essential equipment that must be considered. For example, in the aerobic process, the equipment supplying oxygen into the tanks, where millions of microorganisms live, is fundamental for the organisms’ survival and for the project’s turn out. Instead, during the biogas production, the main equipment is a Combined Heat and Power (CHP), where energy and heat are produced. Heat is particularly important in this process since it is necessary to warm up the digester: in fact, for a reaction to happen the sludge’s temperature has to be around 35 °C. Finally, the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system helps with the digital controlling of the whole plant’s function.
