At June 1^st 2018, The Energy Factory Walcheren was inaugurated by Waterboard Scheldestromen.  The facility is the first Energy Factory in the South Western province “Zeeland” and is the second Dutch Energy Factory realised by ELIQUO Water & Energy.  

ELIQUO Water & Energy has modified the existing sludge processing line of the WWTP at the village of Ritthem, treating approximately 125.000 PE of wastewater of Walcheren and surrounded communities. As a result of digestion of indigenous and import sludge’s, the facility produces 35 % more electricity as required for the entire waste water plant. The surplus of the produced energy will be sufficient to provide 380 households for their annual electricity needs, which is more than one and a half times the number of households in the neighbouring village of Ritthem. 

SO, the objective to make the entire WWTP Walcheren energy self-autonomous is being achieved. At the moment ELIQUO and the Waterboard are performing the start-up of the ANAMMOX® plant at the WWTP. This process, which removes nitrogen in a continuous aerated granular sludge reactor, further reduces the oxygen demand in other sections of the waste water plant. This contributes to the further reduction of the electricity demand as well. 

Additionally and in order to reach all sustainability goals at the new plant, a new struvite precipitation process is being realised. This process precipitates phosphate from the digested sludge as struvite. Subsequently the sludge, including the formed struvite crystals, is dewatered and trucked to a nearby centralised sludge incineration facility. Dewatered sludge cake is actually the "waste product" of the WWTP process, and thus a cost for exploitation to be paid by the citizens. Due to the increased efficiency of the de-watering system caused by this struvite precipitation process, less sludge needs to be disposed to the incineration facility. In this way, the Waterboard also saves additionally on the operational costs of sewage treatment.