Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/705933
6 | AUGUST 2016 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Water and sewerage companies have a lot of work to do in a short time before they can make informed choices about the coming deregulation of the sludge market, a panel of experts said at the UK AD & Biogas conference. The opening up of the sludge market is set to take place as part of Ofwat's Water 2020 proposals, but wastewater utilities will need to make strategic decisions a long time before 2020 about whether they will compete in the market, form partnerships with other companies or exit the market by outsourcing their sludge operations. The regulator will be engaging with the water companies on these issues from next year as part of the PR19 price review process, delegates heard at the conference in Birmingham. "There's real potential for markets in sludge activity," said Alison Fergusson, Principal Engineer on the Water 2020 Programme at Ofwat. "Between local Utilities 'must calculate sludge costs' water companies there could be better ways of handling sludge across company boundaries. We also think there could also be synergies with the wider waste market." She said that Ofwat's research had shown that 13% of the sludge in England and Wales could be profitably transferred to other facilities across water company boundaries. This rests on the calculation that it would be economic to move sludge a distance of 50km but no further. Information sharing, in the form of published figures, would be required at an early stage from the wastewater utilities, she added. But Richard Laikin, UK Water Sector Leader at PwC, warned: "Most water companies have no idea about the unit costs of their sewage sludge operations - how much it costs to treat and transport the sludge, and the cost of generating energy from it. There's a lot of work to do to work out what the costs are in this part of the value chain, and a lot that has to happen before informed choices can be made." With sludge treatment facilities making up only around 5% of water company assets, most companies still saw the aims of their sludge operations as "minimising costs" rather than "maximising value", he said. Utilities must decide if they are able to make the shi— to the latter, or whether they would be better off exiting the market by outsourcing sludge operations. "They haven't got a long time to think about it," he added. Steve Bungay, Chair of the Wastewater Management Panel at CIWEM, cautioned that the new market would need to follow clear standards on the quality of sludge treatment so that agricultural users of the final product could have confidence whatever company ends up supplying them. The event was organised by industry body ADBA. 30% The growth in the amount of biogas energy being generated in the UK over the past year through anaerobic digestion (AD) processes. But fewer new AD plants are now being put in due to uncertainties over RHI incentives, says industry body ADBA. Roseanna Cunningham, Scotland's Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, and 10-year old Lewis Bennett, help launch Scottish Water's tunnel boring machine (TBM) which will construct the Shieldhall Tunnel. The 180-metre long TBM is about to start digging the first stage of the £100M tunnel between Craigton and Queen's Park, south of Glasgow. Polluters pay Portugal punished by ECJ The European Court of Justice has ordered Portugal to pay €3M and a penalty payment of €8,000 per day due to two of its towns not meeting wastewater discharge standards, under the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. The towns, Vila Real de Santo Antonio and Matosinhos, are still not equipped with effective wastewater treatment despite a 2009 judgement ordering them to comply, found the ECJ. Portugal has said that it will not be able to comply with the 2009 judgement until 2019. Farm ordered to pay £12K over slurry and silage Dorset company High House Farm has been ordered to pay almost £12,000 in fines and costs for polluting the same stream twice - first with slurry and then silage. The spills occurred within five months of each other in February and June 2015. An overflowing slurry lagoon and a poorly maintained silage clamp were to blame for the pollution to Osmington Stream near Dorchester, the court heard a er a prosecution by the Environment Agency. High House Farm admitted the charge and was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay £6,990 costs. AD firm fined for biofuel spill The owners of an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Hockcliffe, Bedfordshire have been fined a er admitting that poor site management led to 3km of watercourses being polluted. Trinity Hall Biogas Ltd was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £10,423.79 by Luton Magistrates Court on June 15th a er a prosecution by the Environment Agency. The company, which leased farm land to run an AD plant and owned the operation, admitted the pollution was caused by an overflowing tank. Warren Scott, controlling partner of site operators Scott and Scott, accepted a caution at a previous hearing. Industry news August