Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) consume high amounts of energy which is mostly purchased from the grid. During the past years, many ongoing measures have taken place to analyze the possible solutions for both reducing the energy consumption and increasing the renewable energy production in the plants. This review contains all possible aspects which may assist to move towards energy neutrality in WWTPs. The sources of energy...

This work aimed to compare the carbon footprint (CF) of six full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The CF was estimated in the range of 23–100 kg CO2e per population equivalent. In the total CF, the direct emissions held the highest share (62–74%) for the plants with energy recovery from biogas. In the plants depending entirely on the power grid, the indirect emissions due to energy consumption dominated the total CF (69–72%)....

Nitrous oxide (N2O) emitted from biological nutrient removal activated sludge systems contributes significantly to the total carbon footprint of modern wastewater treatment plants. In the present study, N2O production and emissions were experimentally determined in a large-scale plant (220,000 PE) employing combined nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) removal. As a modelling tool, the Activated Sludge Model 2d (ASM2d) was extended...