IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v161y2016icp404-411.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluation of the energy efficiency of a large wastewater treatment plant in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Panepinto, Deborah
  • Fiore, Silvia
  • Zappone, Mariantonia
  • Genon, Giuseppe
  • Meucci, Lorenza

Abstract

Energy consumption represents a significant part of the operative costs of a wastewater treatment plant but, with a correct design and a careful management model, there are important possibilities for its limitation. The proposed research presents a multi-step methodology for the evaluation of the energetic aspects of wastewater treatment, which was implemented on the largest facility in Italy (2.7M population equivalents as organic load), managed by Società Metropolitana Acque Torino (SMAT). The study initially took into account each phase of the process scheme, in order to obtain specific electricity consumption values for all the electro-mechanic devices. Data from tele-control system and direct measurements in field have both been acquired. The total electric energy demand of the plant was evaluated (66.78GWh/y, about 50% from aeration in oxidation tanks). In account of large contribution the energy efficiency of the blowers was verified with positive results. Four specific energy consumption indexes were considered to carry out a critical analysis of SMAT wastewater treatment plant with other facilities performing biological oxidation processes and of a different order of magnitude about design capacity, and congruent values were obtained. The considered indexes related the electric energy demand to the equivalent population, to the volume of treated water and to the amount of removed COD and total Nitrogen. Furthermore the thermal energy demand of the plant was estimated (49.15GWh/y, more than 93% from sludge line). An energy balance for the whole plant was finally evaluated, and some energy optimization solutions to decrease the corresponding costs were suggested.

Suggested Citation

  • Panepinto, Deborah & Fiore, Silvia & Zappone, Mariantonia & Genon, Giuseppe & Meucci, Lorenza, 2016. "Evaluation of the energy efficiency of a large wastewater treatment plant in Italy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 404-411.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:161:y:2016:i:c:p:404-411
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.10.027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915012544
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.10.027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bidart, Christian & Fröhling, Magnus & Schultmann, Frank, 2014. "Electricity and substitute natural gas generation from the conversion of wastewater treatment plant sludge," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 404-413.
    2. Shen, Yanwen & Linville, Jessica L. & Urgun-Demirtas, Meltem & Mintz, Marianne M. & Snyder, Seth W., 2015. "An overview of biogas production and utilization at full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the United States: Challenges and opportunities towards energy-neutral WWTPs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 346-362.
    3. Cano, R. & Pérez-Elvira, S.I. & Fdz-Polanco, F., 2015. "Energy feasibility study of sludge pretreatments: A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 176-185.
    4. Deborah Panepinto & Giuseppe Genon, 2010. "Modeling of Po River Water Quality in Torino (Italy)," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 24(12), pages 2937-2958, September.
    5. Shao, Ling & Wu, Zi & Zeng, L. & Chen, Z.M. & Zhou, Y. & Chen, G.Q., 2013. "Embodied energy assessment for ecological wastewater treatment by a constructed wetland," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 252(C), pages 63-71.
    6. Ko, Jae-Young & Day, John W. & Lane, Robert R. & Day, Jason N., 2004. "A comparative evaluation of money-based and energy-based cost-benefit analyses of tertiary municipal wastewater treatment using forested wetlands vs. sand filtration in Louisiana," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 331-347, July.
    7. Nogueira Vilanova, Mateus Ricardo & Perrella Balestieri, José Antônio, 2014. "Energy and hydraulic efficiency in conventional water supply systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 701-714.
    8. Molinos-Senante, María & Hanley, Nick & Sala-Garrido, Ramón, 2015. "Measuring the CO2 shadow price for wastewater treatment: A directional distance function approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 241-249.
    9. Torchio, Marco F. & Genon, Giuseppe & Poggio, Alberto & Poggio, Marco, 2009. "Merging of energy and environmental analyses for district heating systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 220-227.
    10. Venkatesh, G. & Brattebø, Helge, 2011. "Energy consumption, costs and environmental impacts for urban water cycle services: Case study of Oslo (Norway)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 792-800.
    11. Elías-Maxil, J.A. & van der Hoek, Jan Peter & Hofman, Jan & Rietveld, Luuk, 2014. "Energy in the urban water cycle: Actions to reduce the total expenditure of fossil fuels with emphasis on heat reclamation from urban water," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 808-820.
    12. Ahmetović, Elvis & Ibrić, Nidret & Kravanja, Zdravko, 2014. "Optimal design for heat-integrated water-using and wastewater treatment networks," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 791-808.
    13. Venkatesh, G. & Elmi, Rashid Abdi, 2013. "Economic–environmental analysis of handling biogas from sewage sludge digesters in WWTPs (wastewater treatment plants) for energy recovery: Case study of Bekkelaget WWTP in Oslo (Norway)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 220-235.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giuseppe Campo & Antonella Miggiano & Deborah Panepinto & Mariachiara Zanetti, 2023. "Enhancing the Energy Efficiency of Wastewater Treatment Plants through the Optimization of the Aeration Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-15, March.
    2. Budych-Gorzna, Magdalena & Smoczynski, Marcin & Oleskowicz-Popiel, Piotr, 2016. "Enhancement of biogas production at the municipal wastewater treatment plant by co-digestion with poultry industry waste," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 387-394.
    3. Derick Lima & Gregory Appleby & Li Li, 2023. "A Scoping Review of Options for Increasing Biogas Production from Sewage Sludge: Challenges and Opportunities for Enhancing Energy Self-Sufficiency in Wastewater Treatment Plants," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-34, March.
    4. Antonio Barragán-Escandón & Jonathan Miguel Olmedo Ruiz & Jonnathan David Curillo Tigre & Esteban F. Zalamea-León, 2020. "Assessment of Power Generation Using Biogas from Landfills in an Equatorial Tropical Context," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-18, March.
    5. González-Bravo, Ramón & Fuentes-Cortés, Luis Fabián & Ponce-Ortega, José María, 2017. "Defining priorities in the design of power and water distribution networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1026-1040.
    6. Gupta, Akash Som & Khatiwada, Dilip, 2024. "Investigating the sustainability of biogas recovery systems in wastewater treatment plants- A circular bioeconomy approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    7. Salah Jellali & Yassine Charabi & Muhammad Usman & Abdullah Al-Badi & Mejdi Jeguirim, 2021. "Investigations on Biogas Recovery from Anaerobic Digestion of Raw Sludge and Its Mixture with Agri-Food Wastes: Application to the Largest Industrial Estate in Oman," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-20, March.
    8. Yan, Peng & Shi, Hong-Xin & Chen, You-Peng & Gao, Xu & Fang, Fang & Guo, Jin-Song, 2020. "Optimization of recovery and utilization pathway of chemical energy from wastewater pollutants by a net-zero energy wastewater treatment model," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    9. Lu, Shibao & Zhang, Xiaoling & Bao, Haijun & Skitmore, Martin, 2016. "Review of social water cycle research in a changing environment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 132-140.
    10. Mattioli, A. & Gatti, G.B. & Mattuzzi, G.P. & Cecchi, F. & Bolzonella, D., 2017. "Co-digestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and sludge improves the energy balance of wastewater treatment plants: Rovereto case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 980-988.
    11. Strazzabosco, A. & Kenway, S.J. & Conrad, S.A. & Lant, P.A., 2021. "Renewable electricity generation in the Australian water industry: Lessons learned and challenges for the future," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    12. Valeria Puleo & Mariacrocetta Sambito & Gabriele Freni, 2015. "An Environmental Analysis of the Effect of Energy Saving, Production and Recovery Measures on Water Supply Systems under Scarcity Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-15, June.
    13. Longo, Stefano & d’Antoni, Benedetto Mirko & Bongards, Michael & Chaparro, Antonio & Cronrath, Andreas & Fatone, Francesco & Lema, Juan M. & Mauricio-Iglesias, Miguel & Soares, Ana & Hospido, Almudena, 2016. "Monitoring and diagnosis of energy consumption in wastewater treatment plants. A state of the art and proposals for improvement," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1251-1268.
    14. Shao, Ling & Chen, G.Q., 2016. "Renewability assessment of a production system: Based on embodied energy as emergy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 380-392.
    15. Ziyang Guo & Yongjun Sun & Shu-Yuan Pan & Pen-Chi Chiang, 2019. "Integration of Green Energy and Advanced Energy-Efficient Technologies for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-29, April.
    16. Chen, Shaoqing & Chen, Bin, 2016. "Urban energy–water nexus: A network perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 905-914.
    17. Loh, S.K. & Nasrin, A.B. & Mohamad Azri, S. & Nurul Adela, B. & Muzzammil, N. & Daryl Jay, T. & Stasha Eleanor, R.A. & Lim, W.S. & Choo, Y.M. & Kaltschmitt, M., 2017. "First Report on Malaysia’s experiences and development in biogas capture and utilization from palm oil mill effluent under the Economic Transformation Programme: Current and future perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1257-1274.
    18. Kor-Bicakci, Gokce & Eskicioglu, Cigdem, 2019. "Recent developments on thermal municipal sludge pretreatment technologies for enhanced anaerobic digestion," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 423-443.
    19. Mirsoleimani Azizi, Seyed Mohammad & Haffiez, Nervana & Mostafa, Alsayed & Hussain, Abid & Abdallah, Mohamed & Al-Mamun, Abdullah & Bhatnagar, Amit & Dhar, Bipro Ranjan, 2024. "Low- and high-temperature thermal hydrolysis pretreatment for anaerobic digestion of sludge: Process evaluation and fate of emerging pollutants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    20. Adam Masłoń & Joanna Czarnota & Aleksandra Szaja & Joanna Szulżyk-Cieplak & Grzegorz Łagód, 2020. "The Enhancement of Energy Efficiency in a Wastewater Treatment Plant through Sustainable Biogas Use: Case Study from Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-21, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:161:y:2016:i:c:p:404-411. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.