Characteristic and correlation analysis of influent and energy consumption of wastewater treatment plants in Taihu Basin

The water quality and energy consumption of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Taihu Basin were evaluated on the basis of the operation data from 204 municipal WWTPs in the basin by using various statistical methods. The influent ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) and total nitrogen (TN) of WWTPs in Taihu Basin showed normal distribution, whereas chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), suspended solid (SS), and total phosphorus (TP) showed positively skewed distribution. The influent BOD5/COD was 0.4%-0.6%, only 39.2% SS/BOD5 exceeded the standard by 36.3%, the average BOD5/TN was 3.82, and the probability of influent BOD5/TP>20 was 82.8%. The average energy consumption of WWTPs in Taihu Basin in 2017 was 0.458 kWh/m(3). The specific energy consumption of WWTPs with a daily treatment capacity of more than 5 x 10(4) m(3) in Taihu Basin was stable at 0.33 kWh/m(3). A power function relationship was observed between the reduction in COD and NH3-N and the specific energy consumption of pollutant reduction, and the higher the pollutant reduction is, the lower the specific energy consumption of pollutant reduction presents. In addition, a linear relationship existed between the energy consumption of WWTPs and the specific energy consumption of influent volume and pollutant reduction. Therefore, upgrading and operation with less energy consumption of WWTPs is imperative and the suggestions for Taihu WWTPs based on stringent discharge standard are proposed in detail. (C) Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019