Case Studies

Optimisation of the combined heat and power (CHP) plant performance to increase electrical output at each site by between 2-3 GWh per year

Finham STW, situated near Coventry in the West Midlands, is Severn Trent’s fifth largest wastewater treatment works and treats over 115 megalitres of effluent a day from half a million people. The works processes indigenous sludge on site as well as accepting exports from local, satellite sites, producing final effluent, ‘cake’ and biogas as outputs. […]

Goddards Green Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) is a Sludge Treatment Centre (STC) located near Burgess Hill in West Sussex. The catchment serves the towns of Burgess Hill, Hassocks, Hurstpierpoint and surrounding villages, providing for 54,789 people. The project implements an innovative approach to mitigate the likely odour from the processes at the WwTW to prevent […]

Stoke Bardolph Sewage Treatment Works (STW) is Severn Trent’s second largest STW and serves a population of c. 620,000. The site is also a major regional sludge centre, meaning it takes a high volume of sludge imports from other sites in the region. Stoke Bardolph has a sludge treatment capacity equivalent to a population of […]

Strongford STW is a major sewage treatment works serving the population equivalent of circa 350,000 from Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent. The site’s sludge treatment facility provides a major centre for regional operations. Based on a forecast increase in population, it was identified that an increase in treatment capacity would be required to accommodate the local growth. […]

Welsh Water’s sludge strategy is to treat 97% of sludge using advanced anaerobic digestion (AAD) technology. The Cog Moors AAD facility was constructed to supplement the existing facilities at Cardiff and Afan in South Wales along with the recently constructed Five Fords facility in North Wales. AAD gives the benefits of: Meeting the Enhanced Sludge […]

Sludge treatment in the Huddersfield area was previously provided by incineration at Calder Valley Incinerator, located at Yorkshire Water’s Upper Brighouse Site. This incinerator has been inoperable since a weather event in 2015. Following a strategic review, Yorkshire Water Services (YWS) decided to progress with conventional mesophilic anaerobic digestion (MAD) plant supported by lime sanitisation […]

Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) have two sludge treatments centres, at Bran Sands STW on Teesside and at Howdon STW on Tyneside, which together process 100% of the sewage sludge arising from within its operating region, using an advanced anaerobic digestion (AAD) process. The resultant renewable biogas is converted into biomethane for export to grid. The […]

Huddersfield Energy and Recycling Facility (Huddersfield E&RF) is in Mirfield on Yorkshire Water’s Upper Brighouse site. The project involved the demolition of the existing incinerator and construction of a new mesophilic anaerobic digestion facility that will produce electricity; equivalent to powering 5280 homes once it is fully operational. The primary drivers for the scheme were: […]

The Coleshill Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion Plant processes 48,500 tonnes per annum of food waste collected generally within 30 miles of the site. The site has been in continuous operation since January 2015 when it first received commercial customers. It is currently estimated that this project can deliver 5.5GWh per annum (electrical equivalence) of new […]

Over the last two decades the concept of municipal sewage being an expensive to treat waste stream has slowly become surpassed by renewable and sustainable opportunities that re-label wastewater treatment works as water resource recovery facilities (WRRF), sludge recycling centres (SRC) or sludge treatment facilities (STF) to name but a few. Incentivised by UK Government, […]

Ashford Wastewater Treatment Works is located in Kent alongside the M20 motorway, near the River Great Stour to the South of the Kent Downs (Area of Natural Beauty). The Town of Ashford has a population of approximately 110,000 people. The WwTW serves Ashford and surrounding areas and is supplied by five local pumping stations taking […]

The Yorkshire Water sewage sludge incinerator at Knostrop WwTW is approaching the end of its asset life in AMP7. This, along with high operating costs has driven a business need to review the long-term treatment of sludges in the Yorkshire/Leeds catchment. Following a strategy review, Yorkshire Water Services (YWS) decided to progress with conventional mesophilic […]

Welsh Water set out its vision in its Sewage Sludge Strategy 2040 how it intended to deal with the number one waste management challenge all water utility providers face, the sustainable management and disposal of wastewater sludges. With ever tightening nutrient and heavy metal limits on agricultural usage, and more pressure than ever for companies […]

In August 2010, Severn Trent commissioned its energy crop anaerobic digestion plant at Stoke Bardolph, Nottingham. It was built to help power the nearby sewage treatment works using crops grown on contaminated farmland which is not suitable for food production. The energy crop plant was sized to convert 37,000 tonnes of maize silage each year […]

The Basingstoke Sludge Treatment Centre (STC) incorporates liquid and caked, raw sludge import facilities together with thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digestion plant which will process 53tDS/day of sludge from Basingstoke, Farnham, Fleet, Guilford and Newbury. This will fulfil Thames Water’s strategy to cease unsustainable liming activities at the four satellite sites up to the 2036 […]

South West Water (SWW) has an ODI target to supply 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. This translates to a volume target of 50GWh renewable output within the final year of K6. This project will contribute 9.4GWh towards this 50GWh target by 2020 by optimising six sludge treatment centres (STCs), which operate […]

The concept of sewage treatment plants as energy factories originated in the Netherlands in the early 2000s, and Sweco (formally Grontmij) was a founder member of the Dutch-led ‘Energy Factory’ projects. Sweco then expanded the potential benefits, prompting a 2012 rebrand to ‘The ReGenerator® Concept’. The ReGenerator® methodology sees Sweco sourcing new pan-European sustainable technologies […]

Five Fords WwTW is a sewage works just outside Wrexham in north-east Wales blending passive and activated sludge treatment. The works is named because there are five fords crossing the River Clywedog (Afon Clywedog) locally. The works covers a large area of land and is neighbour to fields leased to local farmers. The sewage treatment […]

The Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) Howdon site, located on the banks of the River Tyne to the east of Newcastle is the largest sewage treatment works on the eastern coast of England. The plant is capable of treating in excess of 40,000 TDS/annum of indigenous and imported sludge using a Cambi Advanced Anaerobic Digestion (AAD) […]

GENeco gas to grid scheme at Bristol STW

£16m of improvements to sludge digestion facilities

Advancing the frontiers of enhanced digestion treatment

Installation of three new combined heat and power units

Working with Thames Water to meet their sludge management targets and regulatory drivers

Bio Thelys® thermal hydrolysis plant provides green energy from sewage sludge

New anaerobic digestion plant and habitat quality upgrade

Using advanced AD to improve operational efficiency and environmental sustainability in Northumbrian Water

Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water delivers AD plants early, and moves towards power self-sufficiency in wastewater treatment

Energy Crop Anaerobic Digestion Plant

Anglian Water’s AMP4 Biosolids Programme: a story of integration, innovation and challenge

Advanced anaerobic digestion facility – from sludge drying to digestion