Scottish Water completes wastewater-driven hydropower project

Scottish Water has completed a “groundbreaking” project to generate electricity from a turbine driven by wastewater flows.

In what the water company claimed to be the first of its kind in the UK, it anticipates that its hydropower turbine at Hamilton Waste Water Treatment Works in South Lanarkshire will generate 0.42GWh of green electricity each year – about 13% of the treatment works’ annual electricity demand. 

The developer of the scheme is Scottish Water’s commercial arm, Scottish Water Horizons.

The prefabricated hydro scheme is installed “mid-process” at a waste water treatment works with waste water flowing through a hydro-electric generator within the pipeline of the plant. And using off-site construction methods, according to Scottish Water, has reduced the carbon footprint associated with conventional construction of the scheme and decreased time required onsite. 

Horizons’ hydro energy team lead, Neil Beaumont, said: “Waste water treatment is a huge part of what Scottish Water does and there so much opportunity in this area to be bold and innovative when it comes to looking at cutting our carbon emissions and optimising our generation of green energy.”