A partnership was announced this week between Vancouver-based Ostara and Krevox to build a nutrient recovery facility at the Cielcza Sewage Treatment Plant to aid in the reduction of phosphorus being emitted to the Baltic Sea. The facility was recently awarded the Circulate Energy Award during WEX’s Global Water & Energy Exchange Conference in Portugal for Finance & Partnership 2018.
“This project will be the first of its kind in Poland […] The facility at Cielcza will maximize both energy recovery, in the form of biogas, and nutrient recovery, in the form of high-value fertilizer, and use the most sophisticated technology on the market today, which is as efficient as it is cost-effective,” said Tadeusz Krezelewski, Krevox President.
“We are very proud to partner with Krevox to provide a cost-effective and environmentally progressive solution to restore the ecological health of the Baltic Sea and help the Cielcza Sewage Treatment Plant reduce its phosphorus footprint,” said Dan Parmar, Ostara’s President, and CEO.
The Baltic Sea has one of the highest levels of eutrophication in the world, and programmes such as HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) have ambitious plans to restore the ecological status of the Baltic marine environment by 2021 and require Poland to reduce phosphorus emissions to the Baltic Sea by 8,760 tonnes.
The Ostara nutrient recovery system implemented at the Cielcza STP will serve approximately 50,000 people in the Jarocin area in central Poland. Ostara’s technology will help the Cielcza STP increase operational efficiencies through struvite avoidance (a cement-like scale in pipes caused by an excess of nutrients) and the recovery of phosphorus using Ostara’s environmentally-friendly process. The high-value fertilizer, sold as Crystal Green, will be produced at Cielcza STP upon commercial operation.
