Publications

Description

Authors: Dana Kirchem, Matteo Giberti, Recep Kaan Dereli, Juha Kiviluoma, Muireann Á. Lynch, Eoin Casey

Abstract: Conventional (opens in a new window)wastewater treatment plants consume significant amounts of electricity. The constant aeration of the wastewater in order to foster the growth of (opens in a new window)microorganisms or the pumping of wastewater are two examples for energy-intensive processes within a plant. Case studies have shown that switching off blowers and (opens in a new window)inlet pumps for a certain period of time is possible without a loss in water quality. This yields a potential for (opens in a new window)wastewater treatment plants to provide demand response (DR) to the (opens in a new window)power system and thereby increase overall system flexibility. So far, the DR potential has only been quantified for individual plants, while the effects of large-scale DR provision by the (opens in a new window)wastewater treatment sector for the power system have not yet been studied. One reason for this is the lack of optimisation models which include both the (opens in a new window)wastewater treatment process and the (opens in a new window)power system operation in sufficient detail. Our model tackles this gap in the literature by providing a reduced-order linear (opens in a new window)biochemical model for the (opens in a new window)activated sludge process within a WWTP that can be incorporated into an operational energy system model. The results show that the (opens in a new window)effluent concentrations are predicted well by the linear reduced-order model in comparison to the results of the Standard Activated-Sludge model No. 1 (ASM1). Potential model applications are the variation of the (opens in a new window)airflow rate within a certain range and the variation of liquid influent flow rate to the system, which is a result of electricity load shedding of the inlet pumps and the blowers connected to the activated sludge tank.