Five years ago Severn Trent set out its vision and commitment to changing the way they deliver sewage services – to make the most of resources which are becoming scarcer over time - and providing more innovative services for customers in urban catchments. In delivering those ambitions, Severn Trent will deliver energy neutral processing, recover the resources found in sewage and create products and materials for use in other sectors. To investigate that, they are building a resource recovery testbed that should be ready to host technology trials in Spring 2019. Severn Trent is an active partner in the Interreg North West Europe project WOW!
Pete Vale, technical lead on the project, explains: “As we move into a world where the resources required to effectively treat sewage such as energy and chemicals are in increasing demand, we are looking to redefine and reimagine the way we deliver sewage treatment. Our test-bed offers us the exciting opportunity to evaluate energy neutral sewage treatment and to recover valuable materials contained in sewage - such as fertilisers, bio-plastics, cellulose and even protein - that will drive revenues, by selling back to industry and ultimately cost savings for our customers.
The test-bed will allow us to gain hands-on experience of new technologies and how they interact at full scale. Through a long term programme of trials we’re aiming to establish design standards and operational and maintenance routines for the new technologies needed to deliver our resource recovery vision.
Partnering with experts across Europe through the Interreg NWE Project WOW! research programme, is hugely important in helping us deliver our resource recovery vision, through both the development of technologies and in developing the market for recovered products. “
