Coordinated “Water-energy-carbon” Dispatching in Urban Wastewater Treatment Plants

Urban wastewater treatment plants are usually faced with significant challenges related to high energy consumption, large carbon emissions, and high operational costs. The optimized dispatching of wastewater treatment plants plays a vital role in achieving the "energy-saving, carbon-reduction, and efficiency enhancement" objectives. However, the existing dispatching methods have many limitations, including underutilization of the control characteristics of the treatment equipment and insufficient control over the direct greenhouse gas emissions during the treatment process. In this regard, this study proposes a novel model for coordinating the dispatching of "water-energy-carbon" in the WWTPs (wastewater treatment plants). The proposed model leverages the control of blower start/stop or anaerobic digester temperature to explore energy-saving opportunities, incorporates the carbon emission cost to improve low-carbon performance and introduces wastewater staged treatment and reuse to facilitate resource recovery and utilization. By satisfying the constraints of the wastewater treatment process, equipment operation, and water quality requirement, the model enables the achievement of low-carbon economic operation in wastewater treatment plants. A case study is conducted using a small to medium-sized urban wastewater treatment plant, which validates the effectiveness of the proposed dispatching model and examines the positive effects of various dispatching elements on the "energy-saving, carbon-reduction, and efficiency enhancement" in a practical setting. © 2024 Power System Technology Press. All rights reserved.