Design and Implementation of a Resource Consumption Benchmarking System for Wastewater Treatment Plants

Energy and water are inextricably linked, and together they are the two of the most valuable global resources. Internationally, the links between the energy, wastewater and water sectors are attracting increasing attention. In the wastewater sector, pressures including increasingly stringent environmental regulations and greater volumes of wastewater being produced and treated are a major challenge. These challenges mean that, without intervention, wastewater treatment facilities will become more resource intensive and may increasingly exceed environmental requirements, such as discharge limits. These issues are set against the backdrop, in many countries, of an emphasis on cost reduction and increased concerns regarding sustainability of the sector. Thus it is imperative that tools and methodologies are developed that allow the wastewater sector to measure resource efficiency, benchmark its performance in a standardised and efficient manner and identify cost-effective measures that can improve plant performance. This research presents a novel resource benchmarking system for wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). This toolkit is designed to be easily implemented and effective in enabling benchmarking of WWTPs with varying capacity, technology, sampling frequency and management practices. The research considers both centralised and decentralised facilities (manned and unmanned) and investigates the challenges of benchmarking plants where routine monitoring is sporadic.