Operating and maintenance costs of wastewater treatment plant by anaerobic reactor and activated sludge

ABSTRACT

This study presented operational and maintenance costs (O&M) at the tertiary wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) entitled Baldo's ETE, located in the city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. Its aim was to evaluate the economic and environmental efficiency of the WWTP through the determination of a performance indicator, calculated from the identification and quantification of all the operational and maintenance costs involved in its internal processes of treatment. The research identified the various components of O&M costs responsible for the activities necessary for the operation of the WWTP from July 2016 to December 2018, assembled into 4 cost groups. The monthly costs were correlated with the flow data of the period. O&M costs per cubic meter of sewage treated over the years 2016, 2017, and 2018 assumed average values of R$ 0.32, R$ 0.30, and R$ 0.38·m⁻³, respectively. Personnel and energy consumption costs accounted for the first and second most representative components of the total cost in all the months analyzed, with the following percentage compositions: 56.72 and 26.75% in the second half of 2016; 46.69 and 28.73% in 2017; and 52.44 and 27.56% in the year 2018. Finally, studies on the implementation of improvements in the personal and energy groups are recommended, as they account for about 75% of all O&M costs of the WWTP.

Keywords
composition of costs in sanitation; economic indicator in wastewater treatment plant; economic-environmental efficiency