Salsnes Filter is one of three winners of Denmark’s Aarhus Water International Ideas Competition. This competition is the first of its kind in Denmark and enlisted for innovative ideas on how to build future energy-producing wastewater treatment plants. 63 ideas from eight countries were submitted in three categories; 1) high feasibility, 2) long-term energy potential and 3) originality.

On November 5, the three best ideas were awarded 25, 000 kr at a well-attended event at ARoS (The Aarhus Kunstmuseum art museum). Salsnes Filter won in the high feasibility category with our “Salsnes Waste to Energy” submission. The selection committee saw it as the most realistic and proven idea documented scientifically and presented by a company with proven engineering and implemention abilities. The winners in the other two categories were Envidan and GXN.

Ivar Solvi, Manager of Business Development (second from right) explains that, “Our submission summarizes all we can do with a Salsnes Filter system to help build compact and low energy consuming plants, focusing on the integration of processes and early solids separation to harvest energy rich solids.”

The competition was created by Aarhus Water, a large inter-municipal company responsible for water and sewage in the Aarhus Municipality of Denmark. Wastewater treatment plants can be large consumers of energy, and Aarhus Water’s vision is to turn these plants into modern, energy-producing facilities that are both self-sufficient and even provide green energy to the grid.

The competition is acting as a non-traditional procurement process for the refurbishment of one of their WWTPs. The three winners will tender their equipment for the plant that is dimensioned for approximately 127 000 PE and set for completion in 2016.

Ivar comments, “We are sincerely grateful to win this award because it confirms for us that we are moving in the right direction with our product innovation and our research. We are very excited about the potential to work with the other two winners and Aarhus Water to implement our ideas.”

Read more about the competition and Aarhus Water (in Danish).