Cepsa (Madrid, Spain) will produce green hydrogen at its San Roque Energy Park (Cádiz) by reusing recycled water from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). To this end, the company has reached an agreement with the public company Aguas y Servicios del Campo de Gibraltar (Arcgisa) for the supply of recycled water from the urban effluents of the municipalities of San Roque and Los Barrios at its industrial facilities.
The agreement is another step in the development of Cepsa’s Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley, the largest green hydrogen project in Europe, which will be located at its Energy Parks in Huelva and San Roque with a 3 billion euro investment.
This is one of Spain’s groundbreaking circular economy projects in industrial urban water use, a practice that, according to the European Union, can reduce global drinkable water consumption by 5%.
The treatment and purification of urban water for industrial use will be carried out in the new wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) that the Association of Municipalities and Arcgisa plan to build on land near the Energy Park facilities, which was ceded years ago by Cepsa to the City of San Roque. This new facility will have tertiary treatment for wastewater that will amount to 4.2 million cubic meters per year, which will no longer be dumped into the sea, but instead reused by Cepsa in its facilities. This is equivalent to the yearly average water consumption of more than 21,000 four-person households.
During the presentation of this agreement, Rosero Rivero, director of the San Roque Energy Park, said: “Cepsa’s commitment to reducing its environmental footprint and decarbonizing its activity and that of our customers through our Positive Motion strategy, which is propelling innovative actions such as using urban wastewater for industrial purposes for the first time in Campo de Gibraltar. These moves strengthen our commitment to being a significant player in our country’s energy transition.”
“Our commitment to sustainable development leads us to promote new production models. In addition to using recycled water, we will combine all our technological and innovative potential to find a second life for the region’s urban waste, keeping it in the value chain and facilitating the transition from a linear model to a management model based on circularity,” said Mar Perrote – Cepsa’s Director of Safety, Environmental Protection and Quality
In addition to the agreement for the supply of recycled water, Cepsa is also committed to promoting efforts linked to the circular economy that affect the urban waste managed by Arcgisa. These efforts will be aimed at the valorization and recovery of organic waste, used cooking oil, biological sludge from the WWTPs managed by the joint public company, as well as other waste and rejections from the public company’s facilities.