Getting water to our taps and treating it afterwards accounts for about 5% of the greenhouse gas emissions of many countries. But one water plant in Bulgaria is bucking the trend. Can this be scaled up so the water industry gets to net zero?
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00:00All of us go several times a day, but what's the carbon footprint of our daily water use
00:06and could we get more from the waste we flush away?
00:10That's exactly what this state-of-the-art water plant in Bulgaria has been set up to
00:14do, generate as much power and products from the stuff it takes in.
00:23A few hours after somebody goes to the toilet in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, what gets flushed
00:28ends up here.
00:30The Kabritova Wastewater Treatment Plant is one of the most energy efficient in Europe.
00:34Stanislav is showing me around.
00:37We collect the wastewater from the Sofia citizens.
00:41We treat it here so that it's clean in the river and in the process we produce biogas.
00:46This biogas is then transformed into electricity and heat.
00:50The heat is used for our processes and the electricity is used to satisfy the needs of
00:55this plant.
00:56And how much energy are you producing here?
00:59We are producing 24,000 megawatt hours per year.
01:03This is the equivalent of feeding 2,300 homes annually.
01:07And what's different about this plant say to any other?
01:11The difference is the amount of biogas produced.
01:14Usually wastewater treatment plants are producing 50 to 60 percent of their own needs and here
01:20we cover more than 100 percent of our needs.
01:23We're also saving CO2 emissions approximately 70,000 tons per year.
01:28It takes a lot of energy to move and treat our water.
01:31On top of that, CO2 wastewater produces gases like methane.
01:36In many countries the water industry accounts for around 5 percent of all the greenhouse
01:40gas emissions, a figure comparable to the aviation industry.
01:45So we've just come into Sofia as the IPCC are holding a meeting in the city and they've
01:50given us a green light for an interview.
01:53Can the water industry lead the way then to net zero?
01:57This is one of the industries where it's not impossible to get down to net zero emissions
02:02or in fact zero emissions because we have many opportunities to use water much more
02:08efficiently.
02:09We also have many opportunities to reuse those gases which are now greenhouse gases but instead
02:16use these for energy production.
02:18Altogether this can become net zero especially if the energy we use for this is coming from
02:25renewable energy sources.
02:28Back at the plant Stanislav tells me they plan to go further.
02:32We're just commissioning a new plant which will boost the biogas production by 10 to
02:3615 percent a year and we're installing photovoltaics but it's not only this plant.
02:42We are exchanging with our colleagues trying to inspire the other plants to reach energy
02:47self-sufficiency as this is something that the group is asking us to push forward.
02:53That's it for this episode.
02:54We'll be back soon for more Water Matters.