Ipsach lake water plant wins innovation prize from InfraWatt
Energie Service Biel/Bienne has received this year's InfraWatt Innovation Award. The energy company was awarded for the conversion of the Ipsach lake water plant. Here, chemicals are avoided in water treatment and energy is saved.
Every year, InfraWatt awards an innovation prize for the implementation of exemplary energy systems. This year the prize went to Energie Service Biel/Bienne(ESB), the association for the use of energy from wastewater, waste, waste heat and drinking water informs in a press release. The Biel-based energy company received the award for its Ipsach lake water plant project: energy recovery in the reverse osmosis stage.
In the project to replace the existing lake water plant, ESB wants to halve the already low trace substance content of the drinking water again. To achieve this, the company is using the process technology of reverse osmosis. Here, undesirable substances are removed from the water by forcing it through a semi-permeable membrane under high pressure.
At the Ipsach lake power plant, ESB does not use any chemical additives, so-called antiscalants. In addition, the pressure of the discarded water is transferred to the water fed into the plant via a hydraulic energy recovery system. This will save about 740 megawatt hours annually, or 36 per cent of the plant’s total electricity consumption, the statement said.
“The jury was impressed by the innovative character of the project and the efforts to ensure that new standards are set in terms of both drinking water quality and energy efficiency,” writes InfraWatt. The Yverdon-les-Bains-based association, founded in 2010 by the professional associations SVGW, VFS, VBSA and VSA, also attests to the project’s exemplary function for other water utilities.