Beijing Enterprises Group Company Limited : Innovation on the construction of sewage treatment plant to achieve zero-impact on environment

Company Profile
Beijing Enterprises Group Company Limited (BG), a state-controlled red chip listed in Hongkong, is Beijing’s flagship enterprise in overseas capital market. Since 2009, as a comprehensive utility company centering on the clean energy service in Beijing, BG has sped to achieve strategic transformation and businesses improvement so that it can better serve people and perform its social responsibilities. At present, BG’s overall business landscape has taken shape, with gas, water, solid waste as its main utility service and beer as its main fast-moving consumer goods.
Challenges
In recent years, with the rapid development of China’s economy and urbanization, many economically developed cities in China faced a serious problem. Hundreds of sewage treatment plants built before 2000 were surrounded by new development zones. It’s urgent to reconstruct them because of the noise, malodor and bad view. Under such circumstances, it’s crucial that utility businesses adopt more innovative technology and more low-carbon operations to promote the sustainable development of these cities.
Solutions
To reduce the use of clean water and the emission of wastewater, BG actively participated in the construction of sewage treatment infrastructure, invested more in environmental protection and built Daoxiang Lake Reclaimed Water Plant. This plant is the largest underground sewage treatment plant with an area of 4.47hm2 and can process 260,000 tons of water per day. The first phrase of this project used about 480 million yuan and processed 80,000 tons of water per day.
Use vertical space to conserve land resource
The Daoxiang Lake Reclaimed Water Plant is responsible for the sewage treatment in its surrounding area of 67km2. Started in August, 2013, this plant has made full use of vertical space. From top to bottom, there are separately parks on the ground, overbarden, access layer and wastewater treatment lagoons. This structure saved 50% of land resource. Given the limited underground space and fund, the structures were arranged in a compact way and many main structures shared walls with others. This can not only save land resourcebut but reduce the work amount and money. The underground plant didn’t have to set the 300 –meter-long isolation strip so it considerably conserved the land.
Apply closed-off management to remove pollution
The Daoxiang Lake Reclaimed Water Plant is near the Chestwood wet land, the greenest part in northern Haidian District, Beijing. Since the plant is built underground, the operation of machines wouldn’t influence the neighborhood. Because of the underground closed-off management, the malodor and sludge produced by the plant can be dealt with underground, which will not affect the surrounding environment and residents’ life.
This plant includes preprocessing area, biochemical treatment area and advanced treatment area. It adopts the advanced technology MBR to ensure the reclaimed water at B-level in Discharge standard of pollutants for municipal wastewater treatment plant and meet the requirements of The reuse of urban recycling water--Water quality standard for urban miscellaneous water consumption and The reuse of urban recycling water--Water quality standard for scenic environment use
In operation, this plant employs natural lighting system, multilevel and multistep biological deodorization and other new technology to efficiently improve the operating environment. It also uses sewage source heat pump to recycle the thermal energy. This energy-saving, cost-reducing and low-carbon method ensures the safe running of the equipment and provides citizens with clean energy.
Build an industry-university-research center
This project involved different financing ways with Water Authority of Haidian as the main constructor and BG as the main investor. When the project is completed, the two sides will co-run the plant.
With the cooperation between BG and top universities such as Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China and Beijing University of Technology, this plant will be a top-ranking industry-university-research center for reclaimed water.
Achievements
Achieved zero-impact on environment
The plant was built underground and fully used the vertical space, which significantly conserved the land resource. Meanwhile, the plant was built in the original place, which means it is not necessary to rebuild the pipe network and others. For one thing, it reduced the dust, noise and sludge produced in the process. For another, it cut down the work amount and the cost.
Efficiently supplemented the resources in Beijing
This brilliant idea of building underground sewage treatment plant efficiently reclaimed water. The reclaimed water can be used to flush toilets, replenish rivers and irrigate green areas. This effort contributed a lot to the conservation of the source and quality of water in Beijing. It addressed the problems produced by the sewage plants on the ground, protected the environment and spurred the development of the surrounding area.
Played a leading role in the development of reclaimed water technology
BG explored and mastered the internationally-advanced core technology of underground sewage treatment plant. As a leader in this aspect, the company applied this technology into nine projects including the Daoxiang Lake plant, with a scale of 800,000m3/d. In 2014, BG was designated as a research center for water quality safety control technology of reclaimed water. It is the only water utility enterprise among the 43 research centers.
Strengthened the public utility business to promote BG’s overall value
Supported by its reclaimed water plants project, BG reinforced its water service and improved its public utility service. By the end of 2014, BG’s businesses had covered 109 prefecture-level cities in 23 provinces, cities and autonomous regions and 4 overseas areas. It invested and operated 326 different water plants with its contracted volume reaching 19.76million tons per day and operating volume 11.45 million tons per day. Its businesses covered many fields including raw water, water supplies, wastewater, reclaimed water, comprehensive treatment of water environment and sea water desalination.
Prospect
In the future, BG will set “Investment makes a better life” as its mission. It will take advantage of its public utility businesses and experience in technology and management to create new energy-saving and emission-reducing technology and products. By doing this, BG can enhance its comprehensive environmental service ability and coordinate the economic benefits and social responsibility to achieve the sustainable development of BG and society.