LONDON, England, August 4, 2011 -- The water industry is renowned for the high levels of energy it uses while the power sector the vast quantities of water consumed but a recent contract signed in London shows how the two can work hand-in-hand.
Water utility Thames Water has signed a £7 million, 25-year contract with Ennoviga Solar to install three solar sites which will produce 4500 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity over the course of a year.
Annually the firm uses 1,180 Gigawatt hours to process and pump 2.6 billion litres of waterand 2.8 billion litres of sewage a day. The solar installation will provide 0.5% of this £80 million annual cost.
The solar arrays are being fitted in otherwise unusable places at three operational sites in the capital: on the roof of the Beckton desalination plant in Newham (see Water & Wastewater International story), on the top of vast storm tanks built in the 1800s at Crossness sewage works in Bexley, and on redundant sand filters at Walton water treatment works in Sunbury.
Stefano Gambro, director at Ennoviga, said: “The UK is running late on building new power generation to replace its ageing power stations. The feed-in tariff scheme was launched in April 2010 to provide a stable investment climate so private investors would build this new capacity, and at the same time make Britain’s electricity cleaner."
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