Breaking Ground: Thames Water £250m sewage plant, £2.8m SSEN Perth investment and other projects

From a £250 million sewage treatment plant, to Scotland’s “first” subsidy-free windfarm, to Severn Trent importing Brazillian biomass to reduce levels of ammonia in waste water – there have been a lot of innovative and exciting projects happening around the utilities sector this week.

Yorkshire Water has even invested money into one of its River Derwent water works to protect European eels.

Here is our weekly roundup of projects happening in the utilities sector.

Thames Water

Thames Water has completed work on its £250 million sewage treatment plant, which won the ‘Greatest Contribution to London’ award at the ICE London Civil Engineering Awards.

The upgrades to the site have increased renewable energy generation on site from a new combined heat and power plant and reduced the carbon footprint of the works by a third.

Deephams processes waste from one million people and deals with more than 200,000 tonnes of wastewater each day. During periods of heavy rain this can increase to more than one million tonnes.

The changes have seen the quality of treated water returned to the River Lea, a tributary of the Thames, significantly improved and odour emissions were reduced by 99 per cent.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has completed a £2.8 million investment into Perth’s electricity network.

Engineering teams have energised a new electricity substation in Inveralmond Industrial Estate. The project will connect approximately 3,000 additional homes, a school and other amenities at the Bertha Park development.

A total of 3.5km of underground cables have also been installed to increase the security of supply to surrounding properties in the area.

EDF

Reactor 3 at EDF’s Hunterston B nuclear power station will need “additional technical analysis” to support its ongoing safety case assessment.

The work is expected to be completed over the next six weeks.

In an open letter, site director Colin Weir said: “After discussions with Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) we have agreed that some additional technical analysis will be completed to support the reactor 3 safety case assessment; it is estimated that this additional work will be completed over the next six weeks.

“Through our interactions with ONR, the steps required to complete the assessment of the reactor 3 case have become much clearer, this has allowed the additional work and the assessment timescales to be better estimated.”

Weir added that the reactor is now due to return to service on 15 January 2020, a date pushed back from 1 October.

Orsted

Danish renewable developer opened the Hornsea Two Offshore Construction Base (HTOCB) at Humberside Airport in Lincolnshire.

Around 30 Orsted employees will be based at the airport and will be working to construct another offshore windfarm.

Specifically, workers at the base will support the logistical project planning. They will also be able to move between the mainland and the windfarm via Humberside’s heliport.

Hornsea Two is located 89km off the coast of Yorkshire and will be able to power over 1.3 million homes upon scheduled completion in 2022.

Despite having 165 turbines, fewer than Hornsea One, Orsted says the project will use newly manufactured larger blades to generate more power.

Orsted’s East Coast Hub, an operations and maintenance based located in Grimsby, is expected to open later this month.

Muirhall Energy and WWS

Scottish renewables developer Muirhall Energy and WWS Renewables have begun construction of a 46MW onshore windfarm which could become Scotland’s first subsidy free project of its type when completed.

Crossdykes windfarm, located in Dumfries and Galloway, is believed to be the first subsidy free development to be project-financed, with merchant bankers Close Brothers Leasing funding the scheme and turbines supplied by Nordex.

Yorkshire Water

Yorkshire Water has completed a £1 million scheme to prevent eels from inadvertently swimming from the River Derwent into its water treatment works at Loftsome Bridge in East Yorkshire.

The treatment works abstracts water from the river to treat and supply as drinking water, but its previous inlet enabled fish to occasionally swim into the water processing site.

A decline of European small eels means the fish is now classified as critically endangered.

To try and halt the decline in eel numbers, the EU Eels Regulations orders water companies to ensure their screens and inlets are designed in such a way to protect this fish species.

Severn Trent

Severn Trent has imported a type of biomass from Brazil to reduce levels of ammonia in wastewater in Birmingham.

Importing the anammox from a significantly warmer climate has the advantage of multiplying quicker and working more efficiently than biomass from temperate regions.

Anammox, an abbreviation for anaerobic ammonium oxidation, is used to remove nitrogen rich effluents.

You can read more of this story here.