Thames Water announced that it could "heat thousands of homes in southwest London soon from the waste generated by sewage," as part of the first scheme in England, according to the British newspaper, The Guardian.
Thames Water hopes to tap the "human waste heat" from the treatment plant in Kingston upon Thames to heat more than 2,000 new homes.
Usually the company "purifies the warm, clean water left over after treatment" and returns it to the river as wastewater, but under the new plan, it will convert the warm water into an energy center where it will help heat the water intended for heating homes.
The new energy center will use heat pumps to raise the temperature of the water, and devices to transfer the waste water heat to a separate system of water pipes, to distribute the hot water to the heating network.
By using "renewable heating powered by human waste instead of fossil fuel gas" the scheme could save more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 30 years.
Source: Al Horra
