Anglian Water develops European first in water recycling

Anglian Water is building a water recycling system that could help to solve some of the world’s water shortages. The system, a European first, recycles the wastewater leaving Anglian Water’s sewage treatment plant at Peterborough and sends it to a nearby power station where it is turned into steam to power the generators.

The gas-fired power station, owned by TXU Europe Power, currently uses nearly 250,000 gallons of ordinary tap water every day for generating steam. When this innovative recycling system is up and running in the summer, the tap water will be substituted by higher quality recycled water.

This means that the 250,000 gallons of tap water that was going to the power station will be available to meet the daily needs of some 6,000 domestic customers in Peterborough. The environmental benefit is that growth in the city can be met through recycling, not exploiting new water resources.

Instead of going out to the tidal estuary and disappearing into the sea, two per cent of the wastewater from Anglian Water’s sewage treatment plant will go to the recycling centre. At the centre the water is cleaned through special membranes - like ultra-fine tea strainers - that filter out all the impurities. The treated recycled water is now about 10 times purer than tap water. The pure water is piped to the Peterborough power station where it is used to generate steam.

John Murrer, Anglian Water’s project manager, said: “This is a very exciting and innovative project demonstrating the benefits of advanced membrane technology. It is also environmentally friendly. Recycling water in this way has huge global implications in terms of water resources.

“What Anglian Water is doing at Peterborough can be used by other power stations, oil refineries and the chemical processing industry. The opportunities are not limited to these shores. We see a huge market in countries where water resources are limited.

“In the United Kingdom over recent years there have been major improvements in sewage treatment technology at coastal sites. This has led to large quantities of ‘fresh’ water being discharged into the sea or tidal estuaries. We are looking to re-use some of this water for industrial purposes. By doing this we are saving significant amounts of drinking water that can then be used to meet increased domestic demand.

“Anglian Water is a world leading water company when it comes to recycling and managing water. Through the use of membrane treatment we can produce a wide range of different quality waters from a whole host of water sources. We see this project at Peterborough as only the start.”

Bill Burrough, who manages TXU Europe Power's gas fired power stations, said: 'We were attracted to the project as this was an innovative opportunity for TXU Europe Power to improve the environmental effect of their power station at Peterborough. It also gave us the opportunity to be directly involved in ground breaking technology which we may be able to use elsewhere'.

Construction of the recycling centre has already started at Peterborough. It is expected to be up and running by the summer.



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