Aim: The Most Resource Efficient Wastewater Treatment Plant

The plans for the new Aarhus facility are ambitious.

“We need to build a new and bigger Marselisborg Wastewater Treatment Plant. Our goal is simple but ambitious – we want it to be the world’s most resource efficient wastewater treatment plant“, is the vision of Aarhus Vand, one of Denmark’s leading water companies. The plan: two large-scale wastewater treatment plants – Egaa and Marselisborg – equipped with the most environment-friendly and efficient technologies and ope­rating with much more efficient plants. A consolidation estimated to reduce operating costs by 40 percent.

Egaa WWTP has already undergone an extensive energy renovation to meet the future needs for capacity and is today producing more electricity than it uses: The target was to produce 50 percent more electricity than it consumes. The existing Marselisborg WWTP has proven to be too small to meet the future demands and the current location does not allow the necessary expansion. The draft for a master plan for Tangkrogen therefore suggests that the current Marselisborg WWTP is demolished and a new plant is built onto a site approx. 500 meters west of the current site. The total construction cost is estimated to be DKK 1.6 billion (approx. Euro 215 million).

The new facility will not only be a wastewater treatment plant but a “resource plant”. By this the plant, in addition to the purifying of water, will also produce energy and nutrients from the wastewater to an unprecedented extent. Developing Marselisborg WWTP into a future resource plant, Aarhus Vand chose to name it Marselisborg ReWater. The “Re” referring to the words “resources”, “recycle”, “reuse” and “rethink” allowing for a broader mind-set on how to manage wastewater treatment and water supply in the future.

As Technology and requirements are constantly changing, the Danish engineers will not build a finished plant, but a “learning” plant that will be able to meet the existing demands while at the same time being adaptable. Marselisborg ReWater will therefore serve as a ”test-bed” where developments and tests of new or optimized treatment processes can take place.

www.aarhusvand.dk

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