Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2014) 1e7

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Ways to optimize the energy balance of municipal wastewater

systems: lessons learned from Austrian applications
Otto Nowak a, *, Peter Enderle b, Petar Varbanov c
a

Nowak Waste Water Consult (NW2C), Colmarplatz 1, 7000 Eisenstadt, Austria

iwConsulting Engineers e.U. (iwConsult), Nikolaiplatz 4/II, 8020 Graz, Austria
c
}
Centre for Process Integration and Intensication e CPI2, Research Institute of Chemical and Process Engineering e MUKKI,
Faculty of Information
Technology, University of Pannonia, Egyetem u. 10, 8200 Veszpr
em, Hungary
b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 2 December 2013
Received in revised form
19 August 2014
Accepted 21 August 2014
Available online xxx

This paper discusses some of the major ways in which the energy balance of municipal wastewater
systems can be optimized. In Austria, two advanced municipal wastewater treatment plants with
nutrient removal are energy self-sufcient. At these plants the total consumption of electric energy is
smaller than the energy production by means of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generation using
biogas from anaerobic sludge digestion. By additional measures like the addition of organic waste to the
digesters (co-digestion), the use of the thermal energy of the wastewater for space heating and
alternative wastewater and waste options using alternative processes, municipal wastewater systems can
even become energy-positive. The studies have shown that wastewater treatment plants are capable of
reaching up to 180% energy generation compared to the energy needs, while switching from wastewater
to cooling water regeneration as the heat source of heat pumps for district heating can offer electricity
savings of up to 45%. However, negative effects on the environment like insufcient wastewater treatment or the release of methane gas to the atmosphere have to be avoided.
2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords:
Municipal wastewater
Wastewater treatment
Energy optimization
Wastewater heat
Anaerobic treatment

1. Introduction
Considering the energy content of wastewater, two forms of
energy have to be taken into account: thermal energy and
chemically-bound energy of the organics contained in the stream.
The latter is most commonly expressed as COD (Chemical Oxygen
Demand). Thermal energy is the larger part, but it has to be reused
as close to the source as possible, whereas the chemically-bound
energy can be transported via the sewer system with only little
losses.
The concept of using municipal wastewater for residential
heating by means of heat pumps exists since many years (Funamizu
et al., 2001). In Europe, more than 100 wastewater heat recovery
systems are meanwhile in operation mainly in Switzerland and in
Scandinavia e e.g. for Oslo (Venkatesh and Bratteb, 2011) and for
Stockholm (Pandis Iveroth et al., 2013).

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 43 676 337 09 56.

E-mail addresses: nowak@abwasserberatung.at (O. Nowak), peter.enderle@
iwconsult.at (P. Enderle), varbanov@cpi.uni-pannon.hu (P. Varbanov).

In Austria, the theoretical potential of thermal energy recovered

from wastewater via heat pumps amounts up to 450 GWh/y (Bucar
and Schinnerl, 2007). In Germany, the potential of thermal heat
bound in municipal wastewater is expected to be as high as to cover
approximately 5% of the space heating demand by using heat
pumps (Mller and Butz, 2010). Some heat recovery systems have
been launched recently (Butz and Mller, 2010). However, in utilizing the thermal energy of wastewater in an economic and
ecological way, the sewer system as well as the potential system
user have to fulll some basic requirements: minimal wastewater
ow of 15 L/s, heat demand of at least 100 kW, short distance between heat source and heat sink, high operation performance of
heat pumps, etc. (Mller and Butz, 2010). The integration of heat
exchanger systems at existing sewer systems is basically possible,
but cost-intensive. Necessary rehabilitation measures at existing
sewer networks, however, provide a good opportunity to integrate
heat recovery devices. Although there are a number of applications
where the thermal energy from municipal wastewater is used, it is
in general more efcient to reuse the heat from industrial wastewater or from cooling water.
Regarding the chemically-bound energy, in principle the organic
compounds can be degraded biologically under aerobic or

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.068
0959-6526/ 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Nowak, O., et al., Ways to optimize the energy balance of municipal wastewater systems: lessons learned from
Austrian applications, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.068

O. Nowak et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2014) 1e7

anaerobic conditions. By the latter process, energy can be gained in

the form of methane (CH4). However, some of the COD of wastewater is needed for nitrogen removal by denitrication (Nowak
et al., 2011). Furthermore, aerobic treatment with a long solids
retention time of the biomass is necessary also for far-reaching
degradation of organic micropollutants. Under optimal conditions, about half of the biodegradable COD of municipal wastewater
can be converted anaerobically to CH4; the other half has to be
degraded aerobically which causes additional energy demand for
aeration (Nowak et al., 2011).
Many authors doubt that it is possible to operate a conventional
municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) designed as lowloaded single-stage activated sludge plant with nitrication and
nutrient removal, so that it would be energy self-sufcient (e.g.
Meda et al., 2010). However, some best practice examples of such
WWTPs have shown that aerobic and anaerobic conversion processes can be managed so that, based on the annual average, more
electric energy is produced from the biogas (methane) from sludge
digestion by means of CHP units than what is needed for the
operation of the whole plant (aeration, pumping, sludge treatment
etc.). It has to be pointed out that no other organic substrate than
the sewage sludge of the respective plant has been processed in the
anaerobic digesters. Hence, it could be shown that energy selfsufciency is achievable at conventional WWTPs with nutrient
removal treating ordinary sewage (Nowak et al., 2011).
It is possible to further optimize the overall energy balance of
the wastewater system
e by the addition of bio-waste (kitchen leftovers and green
clippings) and of organic waste from agro-industries to the
sludge digesters at WWTPs or/and
e by separate collection of the so-called blackwater (toilet
wastewater) in order to reduce the organic loads discharged into
the sewerage. The blackwater can then be processed together
with organic waste in separate digesters (biogas plants).
In many regions the potential for utilizing the chemical energy
of organic waste is by far not exhausted. In the case of biodegradable substances the best way to utilize this energy is generally
anaerobic digestion. Until now, anaerobic treatment of waste is
typically applied to sludge treatment at larger municipal WWTPs,
to the treatment of organically high-concentrated industrial
wastewater and occasionally to the treatment of manure, food
leftovers from restaurants and so-called bio-waste from households, if it is collected separately. In Austria, like in most countries
of Central Europe, municipal WWTPs with a design capacity of
more than 30,000 PE (Population Equivalent) are mostly equipped
with mesophilic anaerobic sludge digestion. By using the digester
gas as energy source, at least a part of the chemical energy from the
wastewater is exploited. Overcapacities of anaerobic digesters at
WWTPs are occasionally used for the treatment of organic waste in
order to increase the biogas production. However, not only the gain
of biogas should be of interest when using these free capacities by
feeding co-substrates into the digester of WWTPs, but also impacts
on the operation of the plant.
Co-digestion of organic waste may lead to additional pollution
loads, mainly of nitrogen (ammonia), in the reject water from the
dewatering of the residues of the fermentation process. Hence, the
denitrication capacity of the plant has to be examined in detail to
nd out to what extent organic waste can be applied to the digesters without the installation of an additional treatment step for
nitrogen removal. Otherwise, an upgrading of the treatment plant
to improve nitrogen removal might be necessary. The additional
loads of COD and of phosphorus, however, are comparably low in
the reject water. Also the quality of the residues is important, if the

digested sludge is used in gardening or agriculture. At the WWTP of

Leoben, situated in Central Austria, with a design capacity of 90,000
PE and equipped with two anaerobic digesters, the free digester
capacities are used since 2004 for the fermentation of organic
waste, mainly from agro-industries (slaughterhouses, dairies and
leather production). As the main loading of the plant is only about
half of the design capacity, one of the two digesters is enough for
sludge treatment. Concerning additional nitrogen loads caused by
co-digestion, investigations by Nowak et al. (2007) have shown,
that the comparatively lowest release of nitrogen e related to the
CH4 produced e occurred from the otation residues due to the
higher fat content. The relatively highest nitrogen release come
from the residues from leather industry. However, with all these
substrates the ratio of nitrogen in the reject water to methane
produced has been lower than with waste sludge.
In sparsely populated rural areas, however, the energy of the
organic compounds in domestic wastewater is not used at all. At
small advanced biological WWTPs, all steps for wastewater and
sludge treatment are aerobic. Consequently, energy cannot be
gained at all from organic substances. On the contrary, the specic
energy demand at these plants is considerably high, as a lot of
energy is needed for far-reaching aerobic degradation of the
organic matter. Anaerobic treatment of residues from urban
wastewater and waste management could be a suitable possibility
in order to improve the energy efciency and to gain energy from
unexploited organic substances. Moreover, for sanitation alternative concepts should be considered, as presented e.g. by Bieker et al.
(2010).
There have been recent investigations on waste and wastewater
treatment touching the plant energy balances. One example is the
work by Righi et al. (2013) on the sewage and food waste management and another representative article is on the environmental assessment of an urban water system (Lemos et al., 2013).
While they correctly put emphasis on Life Cycle Assessment, the
consideration of the plant energy balance and energy selfsufciency seems to be under-researched and in need of systematic exploration. The current article aims at lling this gap by
considering several ways of ensuring positive energy balance of
wastewater treatment and the utilization of the low-grade waste
heat associated with wastewater and industrial cooling water
cycles.
2. Heating with sewage or with cooling water
There are potentially two ways of improving the energy balance
of wastewater treatment plants and industrial sites. They are
related to the thermal and chemical energy carried with these
streams. Utilization of residual or waste heat carried with water
streams is the rst option and it is discussed in this section.
2.1. Potential heat sources
In regions with moderate climate where space heating is
necessary during the cold season also the sewage temperatures are
low during this season. While the temperature of sewage is around
10  C during winter season, the temperature of cooling water can
be assumed to be around 30  C.
The temperature of municipal wastewater can be reduced in
winter by means of heat pumps for heating purposes by about 2  C
(from approx. 10  C to 8  C). Presuming a temperature of the
heating circuit (heat pump output) of 40  C, a COP (Coefcient Of
Performance) of about 4 is required in this case. This means that the
thermal output would be four times higher than the electric energy
to be spent.

Please cite this article in press as: Nowak, O., et al., Ways to optimize the energy balance of municipal wastewater systems: lessons learned from
Austrian applications, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.068

O. Nowak et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2014) 1e7

When reducing the temperature of cooling water from 30  C to

24  C, again with a ow temperature in the heating circuit of 40  C,
the COP is around 8. Therefore, eight times more thermal energy
can be gained than electric energy has to be spent. In other words,
with the same expenditure of electric energy about two times more
thermal energy can be harvested when cooling water is used for
district heating with heat pumps as compared to the application of
municipal wastewater for the same purpose.
An interesting variation of the low-grade wastewater heat utilization is the concept of low-temperature district heating (or
cold district heating) (e.g. Olsen et al., 2008). In this concept the
heat of industrial wastewater or cooling water with temperatures
of 30  Ce40  C is fed via a heat exchanger into a pipe system to the
consumers. Each single consumer has his own heat pump to produce hot water (ca. 45  C) by adding a small amount of electrical
energy (ca. 10%).
2.2. Illustrative example 1
For Austria, it can be estimated that about 15,500 m3/h of
municipal wastewater could be used as a maximum for district
heating by means of heat pumps. This equals to about 40% of the
municipal wastewater of WWTPs with an average loading of more
than 10,000 PE providing approximately 36 MW of thermal energy.
With a COP of 4, an electric energy of about 9 MW has to be applied
to obtain this thermal energy. Hence, in this scenario in total
45 MW could be gained by the use of municipal wastewater for
space heating. To get the same energy in total (45 MW) in the case
of the application of cooling water e reducing its temperature from
30  C to 24  C by heat pumps for district heating e only about
5700 m3/h of cooling water have to be used. This is equal to about
6% of the estimated total ow of cooling water in Austria (800
million m3 per year). With this, 40 MW of thermal energy could be
produced, while 5 MW of electric energy would have to be applied.
Thus more than 40% of electric energy could be saved, if cooling
water from the industries could be utilized for district heating by
means of heat pumps instead of municipal wastewater.
3. Utilization of the chemical energy content of wastewater
The second energy source to utilize is the chemical energy
bound in waste and wastewater streams in the form of organic
compounds. This can be utilized at two levels. The simplest
approach is to process the wastewater sludge in anaerobic digesters. This usually provides sufcient energy to run the plants.
The infrastructure and the processing unites, however, can be much
better utilized as investment and loaded with additional substrates
for co-digestion. This also provides synergy effects for enhanced
waste treatment and extra energy generation.
The following two case studies illustrate the application of these
principles. The common indicator for energy consumption of
municipal wastewater treatment plants kWh/(PE$y) was used to
illustrate the energy consumption of the wastewater treatment
plants. Energy self-sufciency is dened as the energy consumption in kWh/(PE$y) equal or lower than the energy production
from the generated digester gas by CHP.

into operation in the mid-1980s and afterwards only upgraded by

changing and optimizing mechanical devices.
In 2009, the mean inuent load was about 40,000 PE related to
120 g COD/(PE$d). Due to summer tourism, in the months of July to
September, the inuent load equals to around 50,000 PE, whereas
during the rest of the year the inuent load is in the range of 33,000
to 40,000 PE. Originally, the plant was designed for 100,000 PE, but
only for carbon removal e and for phosphorus removal, because the
receiving river ows later into a lake. However, because it was clear
during plant design that at least in the beginning of the plant
operation, the inuent load will be much lower than 100,000 PE,
the aeration tanks were designed in a way that makes nitrication
and denitrication practicable. Hence, the aeration tanks are
operated with a combination of pre-denitrication and intermittent nitrication-denitrication. The efuent temperature varies
between 7  C and 17  C. Now, the efuent standards are 0.5 mg/L
for total phosphorus, 5 mg/L for ammonia nitrogen at efuent
temperatures above 8  C and 70% of nitrogen removal on the
average of all days with more than 12  C in the efuent.
The N:COD ratio of the inuent is in the range of 0.09 and
0.10 g N/g COD on the average. COD removal by primary sedimentation was found to be about 37% (Nowak, 2003). In the aeration tank, the solid retention time (SRT) is about 8 days in summer
and about 12 days in winter. The extent of nitrogen removal of the
plant is around 76% on the annual average, and about 80% on the
average of all days with more than 12  C in the efuent. This plant is
equipped with two large digesters operated in series with an SRT of
almost 80 days in total. The digester gas is mainly used in conventional CHPs. After a second, more efcient CHP unit has been
installed with an electric efciency of ca. 34%, all biogas can be
utilized for electricity production and, moreover, the energy demand of the plant was further reduced by optimization. The reject
water from sludge dewatering is not treated separately, but only
equalized by means of a storage tank. The digested sludge is
dewatered by means of a chamber lter press and used in
agriculture.
Fig. 1 shows the energy balance of Wolfgangsee-Ischl TP for the
1-year-period of September 2009 to August 2010. It can be seen
that it has a slightly positive energy balance on average. Over the
12-month-period, 20.6 kWh/(PE$y) of electrical energy were produced from the digester gas. Surplus electric energy from the plant
is fed to the grid. For the peak energy demand, electricity as well as

3.1. Case study 1: energy self-sufcient municipal wastewater

treatment plant for nutrient removal
The WWTP of Wolfgangsee-Ischl is a single-stage activated
sludge system with primary sedimentation and anaerobic sludge
digestion. The aeration tanks (5100 m3) are equipped with nebubble aeration and stirring devices. The treatment plant was put

Fig. 1. Energy balance of Wolfgangsee-Ischl TP for a period of 12 months (September

2009 to August 2010) (Nowak et al., 2011).

Please cite this article in press as: Nowak, O., et al., Ways to optimize the energy balance of municipal wastewater systems: lessons learned from
Austrian applications, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.068

O. Nowak et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2014) 1e7

natural gas is taken from the grid. Natural gas is used in order to
avoid peaks in the electricity demand from the grid which would be
costly. 2.2 kWh/(PE$y) of electric power were fed into the grid,
while 0.4 kWh/(PE$y) were taken from the grid. With the natural
gas taken from the gas grid another 0.4 kWh/(PE$y) of electrical
energy were produced by means of the CHP units. In total,
19.2 kWh/(PE$y) of electricity were consumed at this WWTP of
which 11.5 kWh/(PE$y) were used for aeration and the stirring of
the aeration tank, and 7.7 kWh/(PE$y) of electric energy were used
for all the other treatment steps and devices.
Over this 1-year-period (09/2009 to 08/2010), the overall surplus of electricity production was 7%. Between the years 2010 and
2012, the overall-surplus of electricity production varied between 6
and 10%.
It has to be pointed out that the Wolfgangsee-Ischl TP is a
conventional single-stage activated sludge plant like thousands
others worldwide and that there is no additional energy input e
neither by co-substrates fed into the anaerobic sludge digesters
nor by separate devices for electricity production, like photovoltaic
or wind power.
The main reason for the neutral to positive energy balance of
this wastewater treatment plant is the longstanding and on-going
optimization of all mechanical equipment and an optimal aeration control.

WWTP was energy self-sufcient during this period on the yearly

average without additional energy supply (Nowak et al., 2011).
In 2008, co-digestion started with the addition of conditioned
kitchen waste (food leftovers) from restaurants to the sludge digesters. The organic substrate is directly fed into the digester
together with excess sludge from biological wastewater treatment
to increase the electricity production from the biogas by the CHP.
Fig. 2 shows the uctuation of electricity production and electricity consumption in the period from August 2003 until April
2010. It can be seen that during the years of 2005e2007, when
energy self-sufciency has been achieved for the rst time, the
energy production as electricity was most of the time a bit higher
than the consumption of electric energy. By the addition of cosubstrate the production of electric energy by the CHP has gradually increased to around 180% of the demand for electric power
(Fig. 2).
At this wastewater treatment plant, no measurable increase of
the ammonia load in the reject waters from sludge dewatering was
observed, after co-digestion with kitchen waste as substrate was
started. And the amount of sludge residues increased only
slightly, by about 5e10%.

3.2. Case study 2: from energy self-sufciency to energy production

in excess at a municipal wastewater treatment plant

4.1. Analysis of the options

The Strass WWTP is designed as two-stage activated sludge

plant, with a very high-loaded rst stage with solids retention time
(SRT) below 0.5 days. COD removal in this high-loaded stage is
around 50%. The SRT or sludge age in the second, low-loaded
stage (aeration tank volume of 10,740 m3) is about 12e14 days
and the temperature varies between 9  C and 18  C. Due to winter
tourism, the inuent load equals to about 220,000 PE during winter
season, whereas during the rest of the year, the inuent load is
sometimes less than 90,000 PE. The N:COD ratio of the inuent is
around 0.07 on the average. The extent of nitrogen removal of the
plant is around 85% on the annual average. The solids retention
time in the digesters is around 36 days. Due to the two-stage biological process, a lot of biomass with a lot of nitrogen is transferred
to the digesters, and therefore the nitrogen load as ammonia in the
reject water from sludge dewatering is very high. Nitrogen from the
reject water is removed by deammonication (anammox) in a
separate treatment stage to a high extent. For deammonication, at
this plant the DEMON process has been developed (Wett, 2007).
The digester gas is utilized in the conventional CHP units.
In 2004, after upgrading the CHP with a new unit (electrical
efciency: 39.5%), the WWTP became energy self-sufcient. On the
average of the years of 2005e2007, 21.4 kWh/(PE$y) of electric
energy were produced from the gas from sludge digestion. The
peak energy demand has still to be taken from the grid, surplus
electrical energy from the plant, however, is fed into the grid.
Approximately 3.2 kWh/(PE$y) could be fed into the grid on the
average of this period, and 1.7 kWh/(PE$y) were provided from the
grid. In total, 19.9 kWh/(PE$y) of electricity were consumed at the
WWTP of which 9.1 kWh/(PE$y) were used for aerating and stirring
the aeration tank, the rest (10.8 kWh/(PE$y)) was used for all the
other treatment steps and devices including the inuent pumps
which consumed 1.9 kWh/(PE$y). Accordingly, over the whole
period of these three years (2005e2007), 6.3% more electricity was
produced by means of CHP units from the biogas through the
anaerobic digestion of the excess sludge from both biological
wastewater treatment stages than what was needed for the operation of the plant. Hence, like the Wolfgangsee-Ischl TP, the Strass

4. Optimization of the energy balance by enhanced anaerobic

treatment

Theoretically, from the energy point of view, the best way to

further optimize the overall energy balance of the wastewater system would be anaerobic treatment of the municipal wastewater in
order to maximize the energy production in the form of biogas
(methane). Studies on anaerobic treatment of municipal wastewater
as single step, however, have typically revealed that the elimination
of COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), especially in the case of wastewater with low COD concentration and low temperatures, is rather
unfavorable. This is in particular attributable to an inadequate
emission of methane gas from the liquid phase to the air, whereby a
relevant part of the produced methane gas leaves the anaerobic stage
dissolved in the efuent. This means not only a loss of energy, but also
negative impacts on the greenhouse gas balance due to the higher
global warming potential of methane compared to carbon dioxide.
A study on anaerobic treatment of municipal wastewater has
revealed that anaerobic treatment could be an alternative to aerobic
treatment in general (Urban et al., 2007). Within this study, tests
have been carried out with municipal wastewater (gCOD 573 mg/L)
based on an UASB pilot plant (Upow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket),
whereby operational values between 20 and 25 mg/L CH4 have been
found dissolved in the efuent. To improve the balance of greenhouse gases of the treatment system, the dissolved methane could
either be reused by stripping the methane from the efuent (Urban
et al., 2007) or new ways to gain a higher concentration of the
inuent to the anaerobic stage should be considered.
In the following, one possible approach to gain energy from
municipal wastewater is discussed. Usually, the fresh water demand of common ushing toilets is comparably high. In Austria,
approximately 130 L of fresh water are used per capita (C) and day,
whereby about 30% of the fresh water is used for toilet ushing
(OVGW, 2013). To avoid a high dilution of the blackwater the
installation of vacuum toilets is therefore a promising alternative to
generate a highly concentrated blackwater stream. By means of
vacuum toilets, the necessary amount of ushing water could be
reduced to 0.8e2 L of water per ush or approximately 8 L of fresh
water per capita and day. Thus, in the case of Austria, the water
consumption could be reduced from 130 to about 100 L per capita
and day.

Please cite this article in press as: Nowak, O., et al., Ways to optimize the energy balance of municipal wastewater systems: lessons learned from
Austrian applications, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.068

O. Nowak et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2014) 1e7

Fig. 2. Energy production and energy consumption, both as electricity, and the ratio of energy production to energy consumption at Strass TP.

Almost 60% of the COD load in domestic wastewater results from

human excreta, as mentioned e.g. by Otterpohl et al. (1999) or Peterhlich et al. (2007). Therefore, on the basis of a per capita load of
Fro
120 g COD/d in the total wastewater, the per capita COD in the
blackwater is about 70 g COD/d. Hence, a highly concentrated organic
wastewater stream can be generated by using vacuum toilets with a
minimum concentration of about 9 g COD/L. This wastewater stream
can be collected via vacuum sewerage in small communities and
dwellings and treated anaerobically in order to gain energy.
In general, the necessary infrastructure (i.e. vacuum sewerage
systems) to collect highly concentrated blackwater for up to 100
households has already been realized in some cases in Germany
and in Austria within the last decade. The latest example for such a
system is the Jenfelder Au project, the revitalization of the former
Lettow-Vorbeck military barracks in a new urban district in the city
of Hamburg. In the course of this project, approximately 630
households are planned to be connected to a separating sanitary
system based on vacuum technology with the aim to generate
energy from blackwater and to integrate a novel wastewater
infrastructure (Skambraks, 2011).
4.2. Illustrative example 2
A signicant amount of waste available in all households is biowaste, mainly kitchen leftovers and, particularly in the countryside, also green clippings. By adding kitchen leftovers to the
anaerobic system e preferentially via vacuum system crushed in
advance by waste disposers e the energy benet can be increased

considerably. In Table 1, the specic COD loads, as a measure for

organic compounds and energy content, of these different waste
streams are compared. COD, as kg/(C$y), and methane, as m3N/
(C$y), are used to express the energy content and the content of
organic matter. These parameters are more conservative than
organic matter or biogas, because COD can be directly converted to methane (0.35 m3N CH4/kg COD) and methane directly
into thermal energy (10 kWh/m3 CH4).
For the calculation of the example shown in Table 1, an electrical
efciency of 35% and a total efciency of 90% of the CHP unit have
been estimated. It can be seen from Table 1 that the specic COD load
per capita (C) or per Population Equivalent (PE) is about the same in
toilet wastewater (blackwater) as the specic COD load in the
sludge from conventional municipal WWTPs. However, signicantly
more energy can be gained from blackwater as sludge from biological
WWTPs is already partly stabilized. No data is available for the total
mass of bio-waste including green clippings. Thus, these values
have to be estimated from data of currently collected bio-waste in
Austria without green clippings (in Table 1: Bio-waste collected).
The data in Table 1 show that from blackwater and from biowaste (collected) about 60 kWhth of thermal energy and about
40 kWhel of electrical energy could be produced per capita and year.
5. Discussion
This paper discusses some of the major ways to optimize the
energy balance of municipal wastewater systems. It has been
shown in Case Study 1 that conventional wastewater treatment

Table 1
Specic energy content (COD, methane, thermal and electrical energy) of different sources of organic substances from households.
Parameter
C capita

Domestic wastewater

Black-water

Sludge from WWTP

Bio-waste collected

Bio-waste total (estimated)

CODtotal [kg/(C$y)]
CODconverted [kg/(C$y)]
Methane [m3/(C$y)]
Energyth [kWhth/(C$y)]
Energyel [kWhel/(C$y)]

44
27e30
9.5e10.5
52e58
33e37

ca. 26
20e22
7e7.7
38e42
24e27

ca. 26
13e16
4.5e5.6
25e31
16e20

ca. 14
10e10.5
ca. 3.5
ca. 19
ca. 12

ca. 30
20e24
ca. 7.7
ca. 42
ca. 27

converted means anaerobically convertible to CH4.

hlich et al., 2007).
values for Blackwater derived from (Peter-Fro
values for Sludge from municipal WWTP derived from (Nowak, 2003).
values for Bio-waste collected derived from (UBA, 2009).

Please cite this article in press as: Nowak, O., et al., Ways to optimize the energy balance of municipal wastewater systems: lessons learned from
Austrian applications, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.068

O. Nowak et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2014) 1e7

plants can be adjusted to provide small annual average energy

excess between 6 and 10%, although on a daily operation basis there
can be periods of energy decit. Through adding biowaste to the
wastewater sludge digester for the purpose of co-processing (codigesting), the on-site electricity production can even increase to
around 180% of the own energy demand.
Thus, it could be shown that the most important measure for
reducing the demand for external electric power at a wastewater
treatment plant is the anaerobic treatment of the sludge. By this
process biogas (methane) and therefore energy can be gained. In this
regard, it has to be mentioned that methane production from sewage
sludge at wastewater treatment plants usually remains constant after
the implementation of energy optimization measures as the chemical
energy content of the wastewater ( inuent) keeps about the same.
Therefore, methane emissions are about the same before and after the
implementation of energy optimization measures. Anaerobic treatment of raw wastewater with low COD concentration instead of
anaerobic treatment of sewage sludge, however, can cause a signicant increase of methane emissions as a certain amount of methane
remains dissolved in the efuent. This means not only a loss of energy
but also negative impacts on the greenhouse gas balance.
Considering the aspect of primary energy reduction per person
and year, however, only a certain amount of primary energy could
be saved through anaerobic sludge digestion. Taking into account,
that not all people are connected to WWTPs with digesters and that
a part of the inuent load to municipal WWTPs comes from industries about 50 kWh of primary energy could be saved per person
and year. In Austria, the total consumption of primary energy is
around 50000 kWh per person and year. Therefore, even if it is
possible to collect enough organic waste to increase the gain of
digester gas by the factor of 3e150 kWh per person and year, only
0.3% of the consumption on primary energy could be covered by
biogas from municipal WWTPs. Nevertheless, even this small
fraction could be a valuable contribution to more efciency within
the area of municipal wastewater systems and to the integration of
unused renewable energy sources in the network of energy supply.
The utilization of residual low-grade (low-temperature) heat in
wastewater or cooling water as the heat source end of a heat pump
can be also named as one major aspect to optimize municipal
wastewater systems In this case the regeneration of cooling water
provides a thermodynamically more favorable option saving about
45% of electricity input. From Illustrative Example 1 it can be seen
that for total 45 MW of space heating only 5 MW of electricity
would be needed if cooling water is used as the heat source vs.
9 MW electricity input if municipal wastewater is used as the lowtemperature heat source of the heat pump.
Therefore, the utilization of low-grade heat in wastewater or
cooling water may enable the ignition of new paths of urban heat
supply and resource efciency based on decentralized or semicentral head recovery systems.
6. Conclusion
In many communities the water supply and wastewater facilities are the largest consumers of electricity in the urban infrastructure and wastewater is commonly regarded as being only an
energy sink. However, there are a number of possibilities to reduce
the energy demand of wastewater treatment and disposal and
there are some potential ways of extracting energy from wastewater as discussed within this paper. In general, the implementation of energy optimization measures is accompanied by the
reduction of CO2 emissions. The amount of CO2 emissions saved,
however, cannot be generalized as the reduction of CO2 emissions
depends on the particular situation of electricity produced/used in
the country where the wastewater treatment plant is situated.

More important than the discussion on CO2 reduction is the

aspect that energy self-sufciency can be reached even at typical
conventional municipal WWTPs with nitrication (ammonia
removal) as well as nitrogen and phosphorus removal. This means
not only a reduction in energy consumption but also a substantial
cost reduction in the eld of wastewater treatment. This is of
especial interest to those countries in which the specic costs of
energy have a major share of the overall costs for wastewater
treatment. Furthermore, a valuable contribution to more efciency
within the area of municipal wastewater systems can be made by
the utilization of available and underutilized renewable energy
sources although the amount of overall energy savings seems to be
from rather insignicant role having a look on the overall energy
consumption of industrialized countries. Nevertheless, integrated
system solutions based on the principals of Zero Emissions may
offer more exibility up to the overall aim of energy self-sufcient
urban infrastructure systems in the future.
In general, the discussed ways to optimize the energy balance of
municipal wastewater systems are appropriate all over the world.
The given and particular frame conditions (e.g. climate, technical
standard, know-how, experience, population density, etc.), however, determine the implementation of the given potential.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the nancial support of the Hungarian State
and the European Union under the TAMOP-4.2.2.A-11/1/KONV2012-0072.
Nomenclature
CHP
COD
COP
PE
SRT
WWTP

combined heat and power (generation)

chemical oxygen demand
coefcient of performance
population equivalent
solids retention time
wastewater treatment plant

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Austrian applications, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.08.068