State-of-the-art anaerobic digestion and water treatment facility will generate clean power from waste water sludge
Yorkshire Water has been awarded planning permission for a new anaerobic digestion facility that promises to slash the utility's carbon emissions by 15 per cent from 2019 onwards.
The £72m sludge treatment facility, approved by Leeds City Council planning officers late last week, will turn waste water effluent into renewable power for Yorkshire Water's Knostrop waste water treatment works. The Knostrop site is already home to a 12-metre wind turbine, which generates 10 per cent of the facility's energy needs.
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It is part of a growing trend for wastewater treatment plants, which are increasingly using anaerobic digestion to generate biogas energy from the large amounts of sludge, manure and other organic wastes they produce.
Once completed, the Knostrop anaerobic digester will be able to process 131 tonnes of dry sludge every day, generating enough renewable energy to power 55 per cent of the site's energy needs, Yorkshire Water said.
"This is the single biggest investment of our current investment period (2015-2020) and will not only provide increased treatment capacity for our sludges but will also deliver significant operational cost savings, enabling us to keep customer bills as low as possible," Nevil Muncaster, director of asset management at Yorkshire Water, said in a statement. "Knostrop is designated as a strategic waste site so by increasing the future sludge and bio-solid treatment capacity of the works the project will also support growth in the Leeds sub-regions."
By 2020 Yorkshire Water wants to recycle 94 per cent of the region's sludge into energy, and generate 18 per cent of its energy needs through clean energy generation.
Earlier this year water regulator Ofwat called for greater innovation in the sludge-to-energy sector, claiming it has the potential to cut carbon, reduce bills and boost sector resilience.
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