Nereda®’s 100th Project: From Breakthrough Technology to Global Player

Wastewater treatment is facing a time of unprecedented change. The industry faces many challenges, from stricter effluent standards to rising energy costs and the drive towards Net Zero.

Thankfully, our award-winning aerobic granular sludge product, Nereda, can help water utilities solve many of the problems they face right now and meet their objectives for years to come.

As Nereda hits its 100 project milestone, let’s look back at its 30-year history, explore why it has proven so popular with water authorities around the world, and illustrate how it is an effective, long-term answer to the challenges of tomorrow.

Setting a new global standard

Nereda started out three decades ago, in the lab at the world-renowned Delft University of Technology. After 12 years of research, development, testing and pilots, the first full-scale industrial plant entered operation for industry in Epe (2005), the Netherlands.

Water authorities around the world soon followed suit. Almost 20 years later, we’ve sold more than 100 projects in 21 countries across six continents and won several awards for Nereda’s industry impact – including being named GWI’s breakthrough technology of the decade in 2020.

Throughout this journey, Nereda’s aerobic granular sludge technology has proven time and time again that it helps water authorities reduce costs, footprint, and energy while minimising carbon emissions, plastics, chemical use, and maintenance costs.

Understandably, it has become popular in a wide cross-section of project types and locations internationally. With over 140 years of domain knowledge, Royal HaskoningDHV has overcome a multitude of business and sustainability challenges and with over 100 projects, Nereda has become a proven and natural choice to treat wastewater As such, it set a new global benchmark for wastewater treatment.

Project 100 is a sustainability showcase

Nereda’s 100th project, a new wastewater treatment plant for the Fort Pierce Utilities Authority (FPUA) in Florida, is a good example of all that Nereda can do. The new 140,000-PE-capacity plant will demonstrate Nereda’s cost-effectiveness, energy efficiency, compact footprint, and water-re-use potential.

FPUA will make significant CapEx and OpEx savings resulting from reduced construction costs and energy consumption, while its local communities will benefit from the plant’s increased treatment capacity and the protection of the Indian River Lagoon, North America’s most biodiverse estuary.

The plant will also reuse treated water for industry and agriculture. This will save two million gallons of fresh water each day which is currently drawn from the Florida aquifer to cool a neighbouring power plant, and channel re-use water for irrigation to nearby customers at a reduced cost.

The results of 100-plus projects

Here’s an overview of the operational and contracted Nereda plants to date, including their capacities and cumulative energy and CO2 emission reductions.

Today, there are 60 operational Nereda plants, eight of which have been running for more than 10 years. Three of the plants have an average dry weather flow (ADWF) higher than 100,000m3/day and 17 have an ADWF of 10,000-50,000m3/day.

The cumulative electrical power saving of all operational Nereda plants to date is 58,000,000 kWh, compared to the conventional activated sludge (CAS) process. Between them, the operational Nereda plants have treated the amount of wastewater generated by 6 billion people in a day.

This has avoided roughly 41,200 tons of CO2 emissions linked to power consumption (based on the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator) which equates to planting around 680,000 trees.

In addition, the contracted Nereda projects in development have a total capacity of more than 13 million population equivalent (PE). When all are in operation, this will save an additional 41,200 kWh each year and prevent another 10,700 tons of CO2 each year, equal to planting around 176,000 trees annually. 

Helping solve future challenges

While water utilities face several tough challenges right now, there are many more on the horizon. Prices of energy, chemicals, and urban real estate are rising. Some governments are increasing the regulation of biological nutrients to tackle eutrophication. And regulation of greenhouse gases like CO2 and N2O is growing every year.

There’s also an increased legislative focus on plastic pollution, a shortage of skilled wastewater technicians, and the growing regularity of extreme climate events like extreme rainfall and drought. These challenges are likely to increase in severity over the coming years.

After 18 years of full-scale use, Nereda has helped water utilities to cope with all of these challenges. This is due to its cost-effectiveness, small footprint, and energy efficiency, and because it enables plants to reduce carbon emissions and use minimal-to-no chemicals.

It’s also because Nereda offers smarter ways to meet wastewater’s tightening phosphorus and nitrogen limits. Its small-scale, modular design makes it easy to scale capacity while reducing overall asset footprint. And the digital operation reduces maintenance requirements and the need for intervention.

Meanwhile, it’s extremely robust in the face of peak flow or process upset events and can enable local water circularity models.

This versatile technology has been recognised as the trusted solution for many of the challenges facing the world’s water authorities. It can help utilities everywhere adapt more easily to rapid change – both now and in decades to come.