On Thursday, January 14th this year, the official opening of the County Solar Sludge Dryer took place at the Municipal Water and Sewage Treatment Plant in Myszków. The opening was attended by representatives of the municipal, county, and voivodeship authorities, as well as representatives from Ekofundusz, Bank Ochrony Środowiska Branch Częstochowa, Voivodeship Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management in Katowice, Deputy Investor – Częstochowa, Ekotop, METROMEKS S.A., and the German company IST.
The consecration of the Dryer was performed by Canon Jan Batorski. After the consecration, the ribbon cutting was carried out by: Mayor of Myszków Janusz Romaniuk, Member of the Polish Parliament Jadwiga Wiśniewska, President of ZWiK Ryszard Woszczyk, representatives of BOŚ Częstochowa, WFOŚiGW in Katowice, and the contractors of the Dryer.
ZWiK obtained 2,283,000 PLN in the form of a non-refundable loan from the Eko-Fundusz in Warsaw on the Dryer, the remaining amount of 968,000 PLN was a credit granted by BOŚ and WFOŚiGW. The remaining amount of 616,000 PLN was ZWiK’s own contribution in Myszków.
The Dryer is an ecological facility that uses exclusively solar energy to dry the sewage sludge produced at the wastewater treatment plant.
ECOLOGICAL GOALS OF THE UNDERTAKING
As a result of the task’s implementation, the ecological effect will be achieved in the form of creating conditions for the drying of the entire mass of sludge in the treatment plant in Myszków.
The above effect will be achieved by December 31, 2010.
Thanks to solar radiation and heat recovered from wastewater, it will be possible to evaporate approximately 1337 tons of water from the sludge, reducing the initial mass of sludge of 2,300 tons to 963 tons.
The average electricity consumption for evaporation of 1 ton of water will be approximately 24 kWh using only solar energy and 70 kWh with the assistance of heat pumps.
In the case of using a conventional dryer, the amount of energy needed would be about 800 kWh for each ton of water evaporated.
Due to the fact that the sludge from Myszków does not contain excessive amounts of heavy metals, the main direction of its use will be in agriculture.
An alternative direction will be the co-incineration of the sludge by the local Heat and Power Plant. Tests have shown that the dried sludge is suitable for co-incineration.