Wastewater treatment and reclamation plants (WWTPs and WRPs) are key infrastructures for ensuring a proper protection of our environment. However, they consume large amounts of energy and chemicals, produce high greenhouse gas emissions including methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide and insufficiently remove emerging contaminants such as antibiotics and microplastics. In addition to growing environmental concerns, these facilities are aging, making them increasingly expensive to operate and face difficulties in retaining skilled staff.
To address rapid urbanisation and climate change, comply with environmental regulations and minimise public health risks, it’s important to efficiently treat and reuse wastewater and recover the valuable resources it contains. Water from WRPs can be used for irrigation, industrial processing, groundwater recharge and drinking water in the form of (in)direct potable reuse. Efficient operation reduces costs, the impact of a WWTP on receiving environments and its CO2 footprint and may enable the postponement of upgrades or building new plants.
A cost-effective way to begin this process is to analyse existing conditions and conduct a performance and energy audit. DHI can help clients discover ways to increase capacity, reduce effluent concentrations, become an energy producer rather than consumer and recover valuable and scarce resources, leading the transition to Water Resource Recovery Facilities (WRRFs). DHI can also guide clients in establishing automated data driven operations to minimise human error risks and ensure regulatory compliance.
"We chose WEST for its extensive and transparent model library and its high flexibility for developing customised models. These features allowed us to simulate complex control strategies and reproduce the real behaviour of our controller, and thus to optimise thresholds and set-points and to validate the benefits of different operating strategies."
"The process optimisation has fully met our expectations. In spite of fluctuating loads, we now see more stable operation with better effluent quality and reduced energy consumption."
DHI is here to provide you with more information, answer any questions you may have, and discuss the best services and technological solutions to help you tackle your wastewater treatment challenges.