The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced AU$6.2 million in funding to Logan City Council (LCC) in Queensland (QLD) to develop the Loganholme Wastewater Treatment Plant Gasification Facility at Loganholme, Queensland (QLD). Once complete, the AU$17.28 million project will be the first time gasification has been incorporated into a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Australia.
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The facility will help to reduce the volume of sewage sludge (known as biosolids) waste disposal at Logan’s largest sewage treatment plant by about 90 percent. LCC’s largest WWTP at Loganholme serves 300,000 people and produces approximately 34,000 tonnes of biosolids each year.
These biosolids are currently dewatered via an energy-intensive mechanical drying and treatment process before being transferred for land application.
Using a gasifier to create gaseous fuel from the biosolids that have been dewatered, dried, and treated at high temperatures, the material produced is a biochar containing carbon, phosphorus, and potassium that could be used as an environmentally friendly soil conditioner.
LCC intends to market this biochar once the facility becomes operational.
Energy efficient circular economy concept
The gasifier used for the process would reduce the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emitted by the plant. The syngas produced during the process will be utilized within the system as part of the biosolid drying process.
An onsite solar power system will also help to support the facility to be almost entirely renewable and energy-neutral.
The gasification project is expected to be deployed in parallel with Loganholme’s existing operations so the plant can operate as usual.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the project will offer significant opportunities to be replicated by other councils.
Logan City Council’s demonstration project is expected to deliver a commercial business case for the gasification of biosolids for similarly sized wastewater treatment plants across Australia. The key knowledge learned from this installation will be significant given the first-of-kind deployment. This innovative process will reduce energy costs, and emissions and significantly reduce the volume of waste from the sewage treatment process, Darren Miller said.
Acting Road and Water Infrastructure Director, Daryl Ross said Logan City Council was committed to finding a more viable and sustainable management solution that also lessened the environmental impact.
At present, six truckloads of biosolids are taken 300 kilometres to Darling Downs for land application each day. That costs AU$1.8 million annually and accounts for 30 percent of the operating costs of the plant. Costs are increasing due to rising electricity prices, increasing population, and tightening of government regulations on carbon reduction and managing persistent organic pollutants in soils, Daryl Ross said
Trials to prove the concept will be completed in February 2020 and construction is set to begin in July 2020 with the facility to be fully operational by July 2021.
