Smart, effective, high-quality, energy efficient – every wastewater treatment plant is interested in achieving these standards in their performance. Every plant also recognizes the wide range of factors that influence figures and that should be considered to raise the quality of water treatment to the exceptional level. Among them, different legal requirements in countries, diverse restrictions regarding effluent values, age of infrastructure, availability of finances… But what else?

The IWAMA project focusing on smart wastewater management has published two large reports that highlight current trends and benchmark the state of energy and sludge management in wastewater treatment in the Baltic Sea Region. The reports were compiled based on more than 65 in-depth questionnaires filled by plants of various size and capacity, from small plants (300-2 000 PE) to large facilities (more than 100 000 PE). Several UBC cities contributed with valuable information and insights in this process disclosing their data on the confidential basis for comparing parameters on a regional scale. The answers were collected from Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Germany.

Project partners from Technical University of Berlin and University of Tartu processed the data about the loads to be treated and treatment efficiency, general inflow parameters and overall sludge treatment situation, evaluated energy consumption. The reports on key figure data collection in energy and sludge demonstrate how technologies applied on wastewater treatment plants vary depending on a country, and how efficient they can be considering different contexts.

These reports support water sector professionals and decision makers in the Baltic Sea Region providing both general information on the existing trends and technical details on the processes applied in the region. Benchmarking of the status of wastewater treatment plants helps in detecting possible performance gaps that can be further improved.