Water Company – What’s the target? With energy bills being one of the biggest water company overheads (50% by some estimates) the target the companies are setting for becoming self sufficient are interesting as a range of comments providing the context to recent renewables investment highlights. The growing technical expertise of water companies with AD, solar and wind and considerable land and reservoir resources to hand is a major opportunity. Interestingly this provides the backdrop discussion to many of the news items on water company investment in renewables but also begs a question of whether water companies should be more ambitious both in terms of their own business resilience in relation to energy but also in providing surpluses to the grid.
Thames Water
Thames Water ‘As well as setting a target of generating 33% of its own renewable energy by 2020, Thames Water is striving to become more efficient to reduce its reliance on the grid. It generated a total of 12.5% of its electricity requirements from renewable sources in 2014/2015, which is a 4% increase on the year before. In 2015, Thames Water pledged to support the objectives of the Paris Agreement to limit the global temperature rise to less than 2˚C and this project will contribute to achieving this goal. The Queen Elizabeth II reservoir was commissioned in 1962 and has a capacity of 19.6 megalitres of water with a surface area of 128.3 hectares and a perimeter of 4.3km. Thames Water currently has solar panels on 41 of its sites. Europe’s biggest ever floating solar panel array was installed on London’s Queen Elizabeth II reservoir in February, as part of Thames Water’s ambitious bid to self-generate a third of its own energy by 2020. Just over 23,000 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels are being floated on the reservoir near Walton-on-Thames, utilising a normally redundant suburban space on the surface, following an agreement between Thames Water, Ennoviga Solar and Lightsource Renewable Energy.
Commenting on the development, John Abraham, COO Water at Veolia said:
“Recent estimates indicate that the water industry could be self-sustaining for electricity by harnessing the 11 billion litre annual flow of waste water. Our application of technology to this process demonstrates how we can help deliver greater sustainability for the industry using waste water to energy systems, and also meet water industry carbon reduction targets. By providing an additional 14% of renewable energy from an existing resource it also takes a further step towards the circular economy objectives recently agreed in Davos.” The waste water industry could move closer to its goal of energy self-sufficiency by adopting new technologies that increase the generation of renewable energy, according to Veolia. By significantly increasing the power derived from the anaerobic digestion of sludge, the latest innovation from Veolia aims to boost sustainability, reduce carbon emissions and lower costs.
Pilot project demonstrates 14% increase in renewable energy generation
Wastewater treatment plants process large amounts of sludge through anaerobic digestion, AD, with the resulting biogas used to generate electricity using combined heat and power, CHP, plants. The new system reduces the amount of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the biogas output from the AD process and the pilot project has now demonstrated a 14% increase in renewable electricity generation. With estimated pay-back on investment of less than two years, it is also commercially better than technologies requiring biological or chemical dosing systems. By moving towards energy self-sufficiency it will also have the further benefit of reducing the electricity demand on the UKs stretched electricity grid.
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