1,700 million liters wastewater treated for Chicago
Nedap supplied the lamp drivers for the UV wastewater purification plant in Chicago, one of the largest UV waste water installations in the world.
1,7 billion liters wastewater treated for Chicago
The Terrence J. O’Brien Water Reclamation Plant in Skokie, Illinois, is one of the largest UV wastewater disinfection installations in the world. Serving more than 1.3 million people in the Chicago area, the plant has the capacity to treat approximately 1,7 billion liters (450 million gallons) of wastewater per day.
As a final treatment step, the wastewater passes through an open-channel UV system before being discharged into the North Shore Channel and the Chicago River system. UV light inactivates remaining bacteria and other microorganisms without the addition of disinfection chemicals or the formation of associated disinfection by-products.
The installation uses approximately 900 low-pressure high-output UV lamps, powered by 450 Nedap LP lamp drivers. At this scale, efficient operation of the UV lamps is particularly important: even relatively small improvements in electrical efficiency and lamp performance can have a significant impact on the overall energy consumption and operating costs of the installation.
Saving energy
After evaluating several treatment technologies, UV was selected as the most suitable solution for the plant and its specific application. Key factors included its low total cost of ownership and the fact that UV disinfection does not produce unwanted disinfection by-products. Nedap’s low-pressure UV drivers have a proven efficiency of at least 95%.
