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Energy Use Assessment and Management in Wastewater Systems
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Energy Use Assessment and Management in Wastewater Systems

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water-Energy Nexus".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 June 2026 | Viewed by 2094

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Catarina Nunes Jorge

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC), Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: energy; performance assessment; urban water systems; water-energy nexus; efficient water use
Dr. Maria do Céu Almeida

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC), Lisbon, Portugal
Interests: sustainable urban water cycles; adaptation to climate change; reliability, resilience, and risk management; infrastructure asset management; systems analysis; monitoring and modeling; the management of inflows to urban water systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The energy demand of wastewater systems is a critical factor in their environmental and economic sustainability. As global efforts intensify in order to reduce carbon footprints and improve resource efficiency, optimizing energy use in wastewater infrastructure has become a key challenge for researchers and industry professionals.

This Special Issue aims to explore innovative approaches, technologies, and strategies for assessing and managing energy consumption in wastewater systems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Assessment of energy use and emmissions of wastewater systems;
  • Energy-efficient and carbon neutrality of wastewater treatment systems;
  • Renewable energy integration in wastewater facilities;
  • Advanced monitoring and control systems for energy optimization;
  • Energy recovery in wastewater systems;
  • Lifecycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of energy use;
  • Case studies and best practices in energy management.

We invite original research articles, review papers, and case studies that contribute to the advancement of knowledge and practical applications in this field. By bringing together experts from academia and industry, this Special Issue seeks to foster innovative solutions for enhancing the sustainability of wastewater systems worldwide.

Dr. Catarina Nunes Jorge
Dr. Maria do Céu Almeida
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • carbon footprint reduction in wastewater systems
  • energy efficiency
  • energy monitoring and optimization
  • energy recovery
  • renewable energy
  • sustainable wastewater management

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

25 pages, 2189 KB  
Article
Regulatory-Aligned Energy Assessment for Wastewater Collection Networks Under the Scope of the UWWTD 2024/3019
by Catarina Jorge, Rita Salgado Brito and Maria do Céu Almeida
Water 2026, 18(9), 1109; https://doi.org/10.3390/w18091109 - 5 May 2026
Viewed by 490
Abstract
The revised EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD, EU 2024/3019) expands the scope of the previous directive (Council Directive 91/271/EEC, 1991) by explicitly including combined sewer systems, stormwater discharges, and overflow events while promoting energy neutrality and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across [...] Read more.
The revised EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD, EU 2024/3019) expands the scope of the previous directive (Council Directive 91/271/EEC, 1991) by explicitly including combined sewer systems, stormwater discharges, and overflow events while promoting energy neutrality and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across urban wastewater systems. Although the Directive establishes energy accountability at the system level, it does not define how energy performance in wastewater collection networks should be structured, assessed, or benchmarked, resulting in a significant implementation gap. This paper presents a novel, regulatory-aligned, data-driven framework to organise, analyse, and interpret energy-relevant information in support of UWWTD requirements, with specific focus on wastewater collection networks. Using Portuguese regulator datasets, supplemented with published sources, existing metrics are reorganised into energy-significant dimensions that differentiate structural, excess-driven, operational, and renewable-related components of energy use. The preliminary findings show that available datasets already support a screening-level diagnosis of specific energy intensity, pumping-related energy shares, inflow-driven excess volumes, and associated GHG emissions. However, important gaps remain regarding subsystem disaggregation, hydraulic normalisation, and measurement granularity. The study restructures existing information into a novel audit-compatible framework, proposes additional metrics and measurement requirements, and identifies measures to facilitate UWWTD implementation. Although developed for the Portuguese context, the framework offers a scalable pathway for integrating wastewater collection networks into energy neutrality governance across European Member States. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Use Assessment and Management in Wastewater Systems)
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19 pages, 2539 KB  
Article
Resource Monitoring and Heat Recovery in a Wastewater Treatment Plant: Industrial Decarbonisation of the Food and Beverage Processing Sector
by Brian Considine, Paul Coughlan, Madhu K. Murali, Laurence Gill, Lena Moher, Lucas Novakowski and Aonghus McNabola
Water 2025, 17(23), 3419; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17233419 - 1 Dec 2025
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1189
Abstract
To achieve net-zero targets globally, industrial decarbonisation is a major priority. This paper examines lost energy resources in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and the deployment of novel wastewater heat recovery (WWHR) technology in the food and beverage processing industry. Four industrial WWTPs [...] Read more.
To achieve net-zero targets globally, industrial decarbonisation is a major priority. This paper examines lost energy resources in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and the deployment of novel wastewater heat recovery (WWHR) technology in the food and beverage processing industry. Four industrial WWTPs were monitored in Ireland to quantify the available embedded energy. Post monitoring, WWHR technology was developed to be integrated within existing infrastructure without compromising the primary function, and evaluated in real operating conditions. On average, 1.11–2.55 GWh/a of embedded energy was measured within the wastewater. The direct WWHR pilot plant resulted in a projected recovery rate of 10.89 MWh/a, leading to substantial economic savings and emission reductions. Incorporating a water-to-water heat pump incurred energy savings of 13.5 MWh/a. Nationally, the energy recovery potential was assessed to be 82.1 GWh/a in Ireland and 476.9 GWh/a in the UK. A large proportion of the energy embedded in this wastewater remains to be recovered and, based on the monitoring campaign, could amount to 118.5 TWh/a and 20.4 TWh/a for the UK and Ireland, respectively. WWHR could serve a prominent role in increasing operational energy efficiency of manufacturing processes by enacting energy, economic and emission savings, thus leading to industrial decarbonisation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Use Assessment and Management in Wastewater Systems)
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