Singapore Harnessing the Water-Energy-Waste Nexus
Singapore’s first integrated water and solid waste treatment facility has begun construction. Read how it is creating synergies in the water-energy-waste nexus.
Known as Tuas Nexus, the integration of the Tuas Water Reclamation Plant (Tuas WRP) and the Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF) enables the city-state to optimise land use and maximise energy and resource recovery.
Tuas Nexus will be energy self-sufficient by harnessing synergies from Tuas WRP and IWMF, resulting in carbon savings of more than 200,000 tonnes annually. Also, Tuas Nexus will save up to 2.6 hectares of land compared to building the two facilities as standalone facilities.
Tuas WRP will have an initial capacity of 800,000 cubic metres per day not just to treat wastewater from domestic sources but also industrial sources too from two separate tunnels as part of Singapore’s Public Utilities Board’s Deep Tunnel Sewage System. Also, Tuas WRP will treat the used industrial water to a high standard for industries’ use as part of the utility’s NEWater scheme, providing a future-proof, climate-resilient supply of water.
Meanwhile, the IWMF will be an operational food waste treatment facility and sludge incineration facility, able to treat incinerable waste, source-segregated food waste, and dewatered sludge from Tuas WRP. It will also have an automated Materials Recovery Facility that will sort and recover various recyclable waste streams, such as metals, paper, and plastic.
Tuas Nexus will harness the synergies of the water-energy-waste nexus with the by-product of one facility becoming a resource for the other, for instance:
- IWMF will convert food waste into food waste slurry for co-digestion with used water sludge at the Tuas WRP
- The co-digestion of food waste and sewage sludge will increase biogas production by 40% at the Tuas WRP
- The biogas will then be combusted at the IWMF
- The electricity generated by IWMF will then be used to power the operations of Tuas Nexus
- Any excess electricity exported to the grid.
The take-out
- 20th-century dictionary: waste /weɪst/= something to be thrown away
- 21st-century dictionary: waste /weɪst/ = precious resource
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