The Bulgarian water plant transforming waste into power and products

euronews (in English)

Getting water to our taps and treating it afterwards accounts for about 5% of the greenhouse gas emissions of many countries. But one water plant in Bulgaria is bucking the trend. Can this be scaled up so the water industry gets to net zero?

Transcript

00:00All of us go several times a day, but what's the carbon footprint of our daily water use

00:06and could we get more from the waste we flush away?

00:10That's exactly what this state-of-the-art water plant in Bulgaria has been set up to

00:14do, generate as much power and products from the stuff it takes in.

00:23A few hours after somebody goes to the toilet in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, what gets flushed

00:28ends up here.

00:30The Kabritova Wastewater Treatment Plant is one of the most energy efficient in Europe.

00:34Stanislav is showing me around.

00:37We collect the wastewater from the Sofia citizens.

00:41We treat it here so that it's clean in the river and in the process we produce biogas.

00:46This biogas is then transformed into electricity and heat.

00:50The heat is used for our processes and the electricity is used to satisfy the needs of

00:55this plant.

00:56And how much energy are you producing here?

00:59We are producing 24,000 megawatt hours per year.

01:03This is the equivalent of feeding 2,300 homes annually.

01:07And what's different about this plant say to any other?

01:11The difference is the amount of biogas produced.

01:14Usually wastewater treatment plants are producing 50 to 60 percent of their own needs and here

01:20we cover more than 100 percent of our needs.

01:23We're also saving CO2 emissions approximately 70,000 tons per year.

01:28It takes a lot of energy to move and treat our water.

01:31On top of that, CO2 wastewater produces gases like methane.

01:36In many countries the water industry accounts for around 5 percent of all the greenhouse

01:40gas emissions, a figure comparable to the aviation industry.

01:45So we've just come into Sofia as the IPCC are holding a meeting in the city and they've

01:50given us a green light for an interview.

01:53Can the water industry lead the way then to net zero?

01:57This is one of the industries where it's not impossible to get down to net zero emissions

02:02or in fact zero emissions because we have many opportunities to use water much more

02:08efficiently.

02:09We also have many opportunities to reuse those gases which are now greenhouse gases but instead

02:16use these for energy production.

02:18Altogether this can become net zero especially if the energy we use for this is coming from

02:25renewable energy sources.

02:28Back at the plant Stanislav tells me they plan to go further.

02:32We're just commissioning a new plant which will boost the biogas production by 10 to

02:3615 percent a year and we're installing photovoltaics but it's not only this plant.

02:42We are exchanging with our colleagues trying to inspire the other plants to reach energy

02:47self-sufficiency as this is something that the group is asking us to push forward.

02:53That's it for this episode.

02:54We'll be back soon for more Water Matters.

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