Southern Water has joined forces with several European companies as part of a multi-million pound project to focus on harnessing energy from its wastewater treatment works.
As part of the New Energy and Resources from Urban Sanitation (NEREUS) project, which involves eight partners and a total of €8 million of EU funding from the Interreg 2 Seas Regional Development Fund, Southern Water will be expanding its understanding of recovering nutrients from its treatment works.
The project is also part of Southern Water's own Bluewave Innovation Programme, and aims to find new ways to increase the value it gives customers while protecting the environment.
Trialling and researching how recovering nutrients from wastewater treatment works can also help to grow crops and reduce negative impacts on aquatic flora and fauna.
Research and development project manager at Southern Water, Paul Reynolds, who is spearheading the water company's project for NEREUS comented:
"We're looking at different technologies and zero-waste options that will essentially allow us to take energy and resources from our wastewater treatment works, and use it to benefit other things, like growing crops.
"Being part of such a huge EU-wide project is exciting, and our main focus will be on nutrient recovery, which could be an area for future opportunity and investment. This EU funding allows us to be more ambitious in developing a technology trial and test the feasibility of a bigger nutrient recovery unit.
"We're always looking for new ways to increase the value we give to our customers while at the same time protecting and enhancing the environment around us."
The multi-national partnership of NEREUS means Southern Water can work closely with others and access crucial data, technical results and provide market-leading information on nutrient recovery technology.
This includes water, wastewater and academic institutes from across Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the UK. Southern Water's work will continue throughout 2019 and into late 2020. Southern Water is the only UK water company working in the NEREUS project.
The final tool will help decision-makers on technologies, policies, regulations and locations when considering options for energy, water and nutrient recovery at decentralised urban wastewater sites.
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