Ministry of Climate Change, Sejong City, and District Heating Corporation signed a business agreement to utilize sewage heat

The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, Sejong City, and Korea District Heating Corporation signed a business agreement at Sejong City Hall on the afternoon of the 28th and decided to cooperate in a project using biogas and sewage heat at 'Sejong Water Quality Restoration Center A'.

The project involves producing electricity with biogas at Sejong Water Quality Restoration Center A and then using the remaining power generation waste heat and sewage heat to supply 1Gcal (gigacalorie) of heat as heating. Through this, Sejong City and the District Heating Corporation are expected to receive benefits of approximately 650 million won per year.

Sewage heat refers to the heat contained in sewage water. Sewage is warmer than the atmosphere in winter and colder than the atmosphere in summer, so it can be used as a heat source in winter and a heat dissipation source in summer. Sewage has the advantage of being stable because it occurs consistently throughout the year.

The average daily discharge from Sejong Water Quality Restoration Center A last year was about 59,000 tons, and if this is 100% utilized, 105,000 Gcal of heat can be secured. This is equivalent to the heat supplied to 17,000 households for one year.

This year, when local governments (Public Sewerage Management Offices) established basic plans for sewage maintenance, the Ministry of Climate Change revised the guidelines to ensure that facilities with a daily treatment capacity of 5,000 tons or more must review the possibility of utilizing sewage heat, and to also reflect heat supplied externally, such as district heating, when setting energy self-sufficiency targets for sewage treatment facilities.

The Ministry of Climate Change is also pursuing a revision to the Renewable Energy Act to include sewage heat as hydrothermal energy, a renewable energy source.