PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Water distribution systems consume 7% of the world's energy, with pumping and treating water for urban populations and the industrial sector accounting for 2-3% of global energy consumption. In many municipalities, water distribution and treatment services can account for up to 30-40% of their energy consumption, becoming a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
To achieve the European Union's 2050 target, the Green Deal and the new REPowerEU Plan, LIFE TURBINES will boost the development of smart cities and promote decarbonisation of the drinking water supply. It does this by focusing on hydroelectric power and by taking advantage of the excess of pressures that occur in cities’ drinking water supply networks, in order to generate electricity from a renewable resource such as water. Current renewable energy is insufficient and, as far as hydropower is concerned, there is no large-scale implementation of mini-hydroelectric power plants due to the complexities and limited incentives associated with this type of process.
Traditionally, water and energy have been managed separately. However, the current situation has led to the development of new renewable energy generation processes that will both maximise energy efficiency in the drinking water supply networks and promote the decarbonisation of the integral water cycle as a whole. The project aims to demonstrate that all changes, however small, count in the transformation of cities, and that hydraulic energy and its use in supply networks within cities has the potential to be profitable and to contribute to the transformation of our cities to climate neutrality.
LIFE TURBINES will address four case studies in Spain and Italy, each with different technical characteristics. Each study will look at optimising the selected hydraulic machine and its energy use, in order to provide the project with a greater capacity for replication.
OBJECTIVES
The main objectives of the project are to boost the development of smart cities, and to demonstrate in a real environment a technology for generating electrical energy from a renewable resource – i.e. 100% clean energy obtained from the drinking water supply network in urban areas by turbination.
More specifically, the project foresees the following technical objectives:
- Design and build a system to produce electricity from the energy dissipated in drinking water supply networks, at distribution points with flow rates and pressures that are variable over time.
- Development of a digital tool to facilitate the implementation of the LIFE TURBINES solution.
- Promote the management, production and implementation of sustainable consumption models and the efficient use of resources through the production of renewable energy in drinking water supply networks.
- Reduce GHG emissions by decarbonating the drinking water supply, promoting self-consumption in drinking water supply network installations.
- Promote clean and sustainable mobility.
- Ensure universal access to affordable, safe and sustainable energy.
- Catalysing the large-scale deployment of the developed solutions.
RESULTS
- Generation of a total of 995,486.4 kWh/year of renewable energy.
- 0.972 GWh/year energy savings from the electricity grid.
- Reduction of GHG emissions of 257.81 tonne/CO2eq/year due to the consumption of renewable energy.
- Increased efficiency of drinking water supply networks (in addition to generating electricity, the system will reduce leakage flows, reduce the number of bursts and reduce energy consumption).
- Increase in the use of electric vehicles due to the installation of recharging points.
