Northern Ireland Water has set out plans to utilise its asset base to help the country transition to a low carbon future.
In a report launched on Wednesday (3 November), the company gave some practical examples of how it could act as a catalyst for change within the wider decarbonisation agenda.
Its Power of Water plan described how it will manage and reduce its own electricity consumption as well as generate and store renewable energy on its more than 3,000 nationwide sites.
The myriad approaches being explored include producing hydrogen as a by-product from wastewater treatment that could be used to power heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). NI Water estimated it could produce enough hydrogen each day to fuel 1,300 large vehicles to aid the transition away from fossil fuels.
Another proposal was to scale up a pilot green hydrogen project at a sewage plant near Belfast in which the oxygen also produced by the electrolyser was used to increase the efficiency and capacity of the treatment works without expanding its footprint.
The company said a larger 1MW demonstrator will be deployed in Belfast by the end of 2021 to establish the feasibility of using electrolysers at more plants.
NI Water’s chief executive, Sara Venning said: “Addressing the effects of climate change, therefore, is not a discretionary activity for NI Water. It is business critical if we are to continue to be able to supply people in Northern Ireland with good quality water services at a cost, they, and the taxpayer, can afford.
“However, change will only happen if we all work together. The Power of Water report is a prompt, but it is only a prompt. What happens next is what really matters. Let the conversation lead to tangible action.”
To address fluctuations of supply from intermittent renewable sources, NI Water will begin to install energy storage systems at its 3,000 sites across the country and create a data centre to better manage when electricity is used across the business.
The water company will establish the Intelligent Operations Centre as a hub of high-resolution data from water and wastewater networks and assets to identify opportunities for flexibility in how and when the company consumes energy.
As the largest consumer of electricity in the country, publicly owned NI Water said it wanted to address its consumption to help ensure resilience and security of supply in the wider market.