The Alicante water treatment plants of Monte Orgegia and Rincón de León are the places chosen by the company Aguas de Alicante for the development of an innovative project: converting them into eco-factories, that is, into energy-producing centers from the reuse of waste that allow them to self-sufficient and thus limit its environmental impact.
One of the methods is the so-called co-digestion, through an anaerobic digester installed in the Rincón de León WWTP, in which mixtures of the sludge produced in the treatment plant itself are being treated together with food waste, such as ice cream from the Helados Alacant factory and fruit and vegetable waste from the Mercalicante wholesale market.
With the recycling of these food surpluses, the plant generates biogas and, with it, increases the production of electrical energy that will serve to self-supply the treatment plant itself. Company sources explain that the experimental tests carried out show very satisfactory results, doubling biogas production. Another of the methods requires the use of a device called a picoturbine: a turbine with an innovative design (vortex), which has been installed in the Monte Orgegia WWTP and makes it possible to take advantage of a small hydraulic jump existing in the treatment plant. The production of energy will be used thanks to the installation of batteries for its accumulation and will be used, for example, to recharge electric vehicles of the Aguas de Alicante fleet.
A third example of this way of using resources is the pilot plant for the recovery of the brine generated in the Rincón de León desalination plant by manufacturing sodium hypochlorite and increasing the volume of regenerated water. It is a combined plant that integrates selective electrodialysis technology (ion separation through membranes and electric current) to produce a sodium chloride concentrate and a flow of water, with lower conductivity, suitable for agricultural use. Next, the sodium chloride concentrate generated in the previous stage will feed an electrochlorination plant for the manufacture of sodium hypochlorite (bleach) that will be reused to respond to different needs of the treatment plant.
On the next 18 and 19 September, Aguas de Alicante will share these projects, among others, with close to a hundred experts from the 36 entities and organizations from all over Europe that promote B-WaterSmart (Portugal, Italy, Germany, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Greece). that will meet in Alicante within the framework of the first plenary meeting of the project.
Under the motto "Building a water-smart society and economy", B-WaterSmart is the name of a European project coordinated by the IWW Water Center (Germany), which has the participation of 36 partners from different European cities, including Alicante. , to develop smart technologies and solutions based on the circular economy.
Cities as disparate as Alicante, Venice, the small Norwegian city of Bodø, beyond the Arctic Circle, together with the (also coastal) regions of Flanders, in Belgium, and East Frisia, in Germany, joined forces in 2020 in a project together to define future strategies that allow them to address the challenges of water management: the B-WaterSmart project.
To implement these solutions in the field of the water sector, its objective is the development of technical and digital solutions, as well as business models that allow accelerating the transformation towards a society and economy based on intelligent water management, by reducing of the use of fresh water, the recovery and reuse of resources and the increase in efficiency in the use of water.
After more than three years of work on a project that started in the midst of a pandemic, with the logical difficulties of coordination, on September 18 and 19 about a hundred people will participate in the Espacio Seneca in Alicante in the first plenary meeting of the project.
