The engineering and energy services company Servelect has completed a unique project in Romania, a high-efficiency cogeneration plant with biogas turbines for the Cristești wastewater treatment plant of the Aquaserv Company in Mures. As part of this project, the existing end-of-life engine-driven cogeneration plant was replaced with a high-efficiency cogeneration plant with Capstone Green Energy turbines, produced in the USA.
The cogeneration plant uses the biogas resulting from the fermentation process of sewage sludge to produce electricity and heat for local consumption.
The CHP system consists of four microturbine modules (4×200 kWe), three of which are fuelled by locally produced biogas and one by natural gas from the grid. The system covers about 70% of the electricity needs of the treatment plant.
“We are delighted to complete the first Capstone Green Energy cogeneration plant in a wastewater treatment plant in Romania,” said Iulia Bârgăuan, CEO of Servelect. “Biogas is a renewable and free source that can be harnessed in a cogeneration plant by Romanian water utilities to optimise their operational costs and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, especially in the context of a European directive to achieve energy neutrality of large wastewater treatment plants by 2040. Cogeneration is the solution that produces the electricity and heat we need for self-consumption, and does so in an adaptive and automatically controlled way.”
The new cogeneration plant will bring Aquaserv savings of around 270,000 euros/year. At the same time, the local production of electricity and heat in cogeneration contributes to reducing CO2 emissions by 1215 tonnes/year, equivalent to the annual emissions of 300 cars travelling 25,000 km/year.
The CHP plant is monitored and controlled both remotely and locally using a SCADA application developed by the Servelect team.
The project worth more than 2 million euros was co-financed through EEA and Norwegian Grants 2014-2021 under the Energy Programme in Romania.