Friday 16 September 2016

Thumbs up for Yorkshire Water’s £72m AD plant

Leeds City Council has given the green light for the construction of a £72 million sludge treatment and anaerobic digestion (AD) facility.

The council has approved Yorkshire Water’s proposals for the bioenergy site, which is expected to help the utility reduce 15% of carbon emissions.

The new facility will replace the existing sludge and bio-solid incinerator at the Knostrop site and enable more efficient and effective treatment of sewage combined with the additional benefit of renewable power production from the wastewater effluent.

Once completed, the Knostrop anaerobic digester will be able to process 131 tonnes of dry sludge every day and generate enough renewable energy to power 55% of the energy needs at the site.

Nevil Muncaster, Director of Asset Management at Yorkshire Water said: "This is the single biggest investment of our current investment period (2015-2020) and will not only provide increased treatment capacity for our sludges but will also deliver significant operational cost savings enabling us to keep customer bills as low as possible.

"Knostrop is designated as a strategic waste site so by increasing the future sludge and bio-solid treatment capacity of the works the project will support also growth in the Leeds sub-regions."