Energy saving in wastewater treatment plants: A methodology based on common key performance indicators for the evaluation of plant energy performance, classification and benchmarking

Sabia, Gianpaolo; Petta, Luigi; Avolio, F.; Caporossi, E.

doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2020.113067

Cited by 33 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…To achieve the objectives described above, one needs to implement planned measures and procedures for energy saving and change the attitude of companies. Simple measures to determine energy savings provide step-by-step guidance for determining savings opportunities in existing plants for resource optimization and control of operating costs [50][51][52]. One of the solutions to initiate many sustainability initiatives is building projects.…”

Section: Project Management In An Efficient Energy Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective Management of Energy Consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of ICT Solutions

et al. 2021

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This research tackles effective and functional management practices in energy consumption using advanced technological solutions to mitigate unexpected events. This study specifically focuses on the recent COVID-19 pandemic that led to a reduction in energy consumption and therefore meddled with the project management’s status quo for the energy sources. Moreover, this research analyzes the role of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions in energy management before and after the recent coronavirus pandemic turmoil. This study also examined the role and place of sustainable energy resources in the effective management of energy consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic. The main purpose of this research is to demonstrate how the recent coronavirus pandemic affected energy consumption and energy prices in many countries and how it paved the way for the new ICT in managing energy consumption. This study elaborated a model to show how these changes evolved in selected European Union (EU) Member States. It turns out that adjusted electricity consumption, as well as the average daily spot electricity prices for the baseload power in the EU countries, declined, and this trend is likely to continue in the next years to come. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, substantial changes in the economy led to reduced office space usage, cutting commuting and business trips, and bringing commercial travel almost to a halt, further shifting the energy balance towards renewable energy sources (RES). Besides, it becomes apparent that ICT solutions used in maintaining and superintending the energy balance are gaining popularity and wide recognition worldwide and will help pave the way towards modern and smart high-renewables grids.

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Section: Project Management In An Efficient Energy Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective Management of Energy Consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of ICT Solutions

et al. 2021

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“…This tool is freely available for any manager of a WWTP who may get guidance on how to improve the energy on site (Longo et al, 2019). Similarly, Sabia et al (2020) developed an energy benchmark model to evaluate WWTP energy performance.…”

Section: Figure 4: Average Energy Consumption Of the Wwtps Based On Plants Capacity And Level Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of energy optimization modelling tools for the decarbonisation of wastewater treatment plants

Nakkasunchi

Hewitt

Zoppi³

et al. 2021

Journal of Cleaner Production

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Wastewater treatment plants strongly contribute to the Greenhouse Gas emissions of the water industry and are responsible for the 3% of the global energy demand. This proportion of energy is expected to double in the coming decade. It is therefore important to correctly investigate the optimal use of energy in wastewater treatment facilities that can reduce their Greenhouse Gas emissions. A review was developed on modelling tools that can be used for the analysis of the water-energy nexus in wastewater facilities, from over 200 research articles collected from different scientific resources published in the last 15 years. The aim was to analyse the state of art of existing tools to provide an aid for researchers and professionals to identify the most suitable tool to investigate decarbonisation strategies for wastewater facilities. Studies were grouped on the basis of the main intervention analysed: i) reduction of energy demand, ii) energy production from wastewater and iii) integration of the available renewable sources on-site (e.g. PV, hydro). The work developed also provides an overview of the most applicable decarbonisation strategies and their potential to reduce the CO2 emissions of wastewater facilities. Results show that identifying the best tool strongly depends on the main aim of the intervention. Existing tools, in fact, can help to analyse separately either technologies to reduce the energy demand or the integration of the most common renewable sources from both wastewater (i.e. biogas and heat recover) and renewable sources exploitable on site. However, the full decarbonisation of wastewater facilities can only happen by integrating different energy savings and renewables solutions. There is, therefore, the need for a comprehensive energywater optimization tool able to understand how key water parameters influence the energy demand and to identify, on a single platform, the best energy saving solutions and the benefits coming from integrating different renewable sources. Such platform could help in enhancing the benefits of combined solutions, helping to maximise the reuse of the renewable energy produced onsite and any opportunity of energy savings.

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“…WWTPs are the primary energy-consuming units of the urban water cycle. 3 Thus, the high energy consumption of WWTPs has become a global concern. It has been estimated that in 2018, the energy demand of WWTPs in some European countries accounted for 1% of the energy consumption of the entire country.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been estimated that in 2018, the energy demand of WWTPs in some European countries accounted for 1% of the energy consumption of the entire country. 3 What is more, the U.S. municipal wastewater treatment systems use approximately 30.2 billion kW h per year, which is about 0.8% of the total electricity use in the U.S. 4 In recent years, several energy evaluation methods have been proposed 5−7 to investigate the energy consumption of WWTPs. In these methods, the energy consumption of WWTPs is commonly related to factors such as the capacity and influent and effluent concentrations of pollutants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Machine Learning-Based Energy Consumption Model of Wastewater Treatment Plants

2021

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Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can account for up to 1% of a country’s energy consumption. Meanwhile, WWTPs have high energy-saving potential. To achieve this, it is necessary to establish appropriate energy consumption models for WWTPs. Several recent models have been developed using logarithmic, exponential, or linear functions. However, the behavior of WWTPs is non-linear and difficult to fit with simple functions, particularly for non-numerical variables. Thus, traditional modeling methods cannot effectively describe the relationship between water and energy in WWTPs. Therefore, a machine learning method was adopted in this study to investigate the energy consumption in WWTPs; a novel energy consumption model with a non-numerical variable (discharge standard) for WWTPs was developed using the random forest algorithm. The model can also predict the energy consumption of WWTPs after upgrading discharge standards. We found that the unit electricity consumption of WWTPs exhibited an average increase of 17% after the effluent discharge standard was increased from class I B to class I A (as per China’s classification). The correlation coefficient of the model was 0.702. Thus, the developed model can provide a better understanding of energy efficiency in WWTPs.

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Energy saving in wastewater treatment plants: A methodology based on common key performance indicators for the evaluation of plant energy performance, classification and benchmarking

Cited by 33 publications

References 22 publications

Effective Management of Energy Consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of ICT Solutions

Effective Management of Energy Consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of ICT Solutions

A review of energy optimization modelling tools for the decarbonisation of wastewater treatment plants

Novel Machine Learning-Based Energy Consumption Model of Wastewater Treatment Plants

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