Yorkshire Water’s progress on replacing roofs at its Dewsbury Sewage Treatment works is near completion.

The new roofs are part of an £18 million Digester Refurbishment scheme with contract partners MS2JV, where they will replace roofs on two existing concrete digesters to give them another 20 years of asset life.

Part of the vital scheme which started in December 2015 also involves replacing and refurbishing most of the supporting assets around the digesters including:

• New boilers and hot water system to heat the digesters
• A new combined heat and power engine for additional energy generation from the biogas generated by the digesters
• New digester mixing and sludge recirculation systems
• New biogas holder, pipework and flare stack
• New sludge screening system prior to feeding the digesters.

Yorkshire Water is due to start commissioning the digesters in May and hope to process sludge and generate electricity by July 2020.

Ed Sutherland, Solution Engineer at Yorkshire Water said:

“It’s been fantastic to take an aging asset that was becoming increasingly difficult to operate and maintain, and completely refurbish it to make it an asset that our operational colleagues can again be proud of. The refurbishment will also unlock the full potential of the plant to treat local and regional sludges, whilst generating biogas and electricity for years to come”.