Author(s): Luis M. David; Armando Pinto; Anabela Oliveira; Antonio Martins; Alexandre Ataide; Osvaldo Silva
Linked Author(s): Anabela Oliveira
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: Introduction The urban water cycle infrastructures are important consumers of electricity. Thus several efforts have been made recently to increase their energy efficiency. During rainfall events, the increase in flows pumped by interceptor sewers and treated in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) can lead to significant increases in energy consumption. These flow increases occur not only in the combined sewer systems, but also in separate wastewater systems, due to water infiltration into the sewers, the rainfall-derived infiltration and inflow (RDII) component, and illicit misconnections between stormwater and sewage systems. Controlling rainfall-derived inflows into wastewater systems is a difficult challenge that has received increasing attention. However, in coastal urban areas, it is also a common practice to store and transport stormwater from ephemeral watercourses to the WWTP to protect bathing water quality during small rainfall events. Coastal wastewater systems often require multiple pumping stations (PS) along the coast, each with its own sanitary sewer overflow (SSO). Most PS are designed considering only the dry weather flows and their flow measurement considers only the pumped flows, i. e., it completely ignores the discharged SSO. Thus, increasing the energy efficiency of these systems requires the knowledge on three key issues: the flows pumped and treated during wet weather; the impact on receiving water bodies of the SSO discharged at each pumping station; the potential to improve the energy efficiency of the system as a whole. Within the SINERGEA Project, an intelligent real-time decision support system was developed, aiming at the management of emergencies of flooding and bathing water contamination, and the efficient use of energy (David et al, 2022). This system is being demonstrated at the city of Albufeira, Portugal, and its coastal neighbourhood. This paper describes the objectives and methodology developed to model energy and its application to the demonstration case.
Year: 2022