Regional event: "Energy-positive wastewater treatment plants - A sustainable solution for municipal climate protection"

Municipal wastewater in Europe contains in its organic content an available chemical energy of approx. 87,500 GWh per year. This roughly corresponds to the output of 12 large power plants. Due to the technologies currently used and the associated energy loss in the individual process steps, wastewater treatment in Europe instead actually consumes primary energy of more than two power plants.

The use of available chemical energy represents a great opportunity for municipalities, sewage associations and operators of sewage treatment plants to become energy producers rather than energy consumers, thereby reducing costs and making an important contribution to climate protection and the energy transition.

As part of the Horizon 2020 funded project "POWERSTEP"( www.powerstep.eu), funded by the European Union, novel and innovative technologies and concepts are being tested in close cooperation between research and industry in order to make the energy content of wastewater available from existing wastewater treatment plants without having to make large retrofitting investments.

In our event "Energy positive wastewater treatment plants - a sustainable solution for municipal climate protection", carried out in cooperation with the Energy Agency of North Rhein Westfalia (NRW), the NRW Investment Bank and the Sewage Treatment Plant in Bottrop, concepts for improving the energy and environmental balance of wastewater treatment plants and possible financing channels for the municipal sewage treatment plant will be presented. How a wastewater treatment plant can become a power plant in practice is shown using the example of the hybrid wastewater treatment plant Bottrop. Afterwards, the participants discuss the various starting conditions that are necessary to realise the concept of the energy-positive wastewater treatment plant.

This is the second regional event during the  POWERSTEP project. The project team now is in the process of selecting the location for the dissemination of the projects results in a third regional event (planned April 2018). The selected city might be located in Romania.

For the current February 21st  event , the draft agenda is presented here:  

http://powerstep.eu/system/files/generated/files/resource/210218-program...