World's Largest Cambi THP to be Built in Washington
Cambi has signed a contract to build the largest Cambi Thermal Hydrolysis Process plant to date at the District of Columbia Sewer & Water Authority's (DC Water) Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant in Washington DC. The Cambi process will produce biogas and high quality Class A biosolids fertilizer product, all to be built over a minimum area, saving on both investment and operational costs compared to conventional digestion. The biogas will produce green electricity for the plant; reducing its carbon footprint significantly.
The major contract forming part of DC Water's $400 million (USD) biosolids management program was signed as a Joint Venture between CDM and PC Construction. This design-build contract includes thickening, pre-dewatering, four trains of the Cambi thermal hydrolysis process and four digesters. In addition, a 14 MW biogas CHP powerplant contract is soon to be awarded, as well as a post dewatering facility contract.
"This is the single largest contribution so far to greenhouse gas reduction in Washington DC," said George Hawkins, general manager of DC Water.
Hawkins predicted that other cities will follow soon. "This is the future of biosolids management because it is a sound solution for the environment. But the beauty of it all is that we are investing significantly less than we would for conventional digestion, and this choice will, in addition, save us some 20 million dollars in operational costs every year over many years to come."
The plant will reduce DC Water's carbon footprint by approximately 60,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. This will be achieved mainly through the generation of green energy, elimination of lime for stabilisation and reduced truck use for solids disposal and transportation.
"For Norwegian based Cambi, this is a breakthrough in the US market," said Cambi's CTO Merete Norli. "In the mean time we have had a great success in other countries and have built about 25 plants. The projects have demonstrated the ability to feed digesters at two to three times conventional load and to make a high quality fertilizer cake product.
"Cambi has earned a good reputation for reliability and its support of the THP system. These are of course all elements that have helped us convince DC Water to make us their choice."
The THP plant for DC Water will have a capacity for some 400 tonnes of dry solids per day, which will make it the largest THP plant in the world and some 25% larger than the Manchester (England) plant which has just been completed.
www.cambi.no
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