BUDAPEST, Hungary, May 17, 2010 -- A €2.6 million renewable energy centre has been opened as part of the Budapest wastewater treatment plant in Csepel.
ENER-G Energia Technologia Zrt. has installed a 4.5 MWe biogas cogeneration system, together with three 2.5MW Loos boilers for additional hot water generation using natural gas, or biogas.
The renewable energy centre forms part of a biological treatment complex covering 70,000m3 on a 29 hectare site at Csepel Island. The plant will increase the amount of biologically treated wastewater in Budapest to 95% by 2010 – treating an average 350,000 m3/day waste water from most of Buda and part of Pest, serving approximately one million people.
Construction of the plant took more than two years and cost nearly half a billion Euros, which was financed by the EU, the Hungarian state and Budapest municipality.
The energy centre will run at up to 80% per cent capacity until September 2010, when it will be fully commissioned. It will supply up to 4.5MWe of renewable electricity to the site which provides more than 50% of the plant’s total electricity consumption. The maximum 8.5MW heat generated by the combined heat and power (CHP) unit is utilised in the digester process consuming 563m3/h biogas per unit.
Balazs Marialigeti, director of ENER-G, said: “The Budapest wastewater treatment plant is a vivid example of how effective anaerobic digestion is as a commercial and environmental solution for large-scale projects such as this.”
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