March 18, 2019
On March 20, 2019, alongside the provincial council elections, the Water Board elections will also take place. This is your opportunity to choose which party you believe should make decisions about what happens to the water in your environment. Consider aspects such as water quality in recreational areas, the treatment of your wastewater, and solutions for rising sea levels. But what does your vote actually achieve? Together with the Vechtstromen Water Board, Energiefonds Overijssel is facilitating a project to generate sustainable energy through water treatment. Using this project as an example, we demonstrate what a water board does and what that entails for you.
What do the Water Boards mean for the citizens in Overijssel?
As you drive onto the grounds of the Hengelo sewage treatment plant of the Vechtstromen Water Board, a James Bond-like scene immediately plays out in your head due to the massive infrastructure present. We are surrounded by large concrete structures and three steep, black egg-shaped fermentation tanks with a connecting bridge at the top. The concrete basins are filled with wastewater to which bacteria have been added, allowing it to be biologically purified. Once the dirty water has been sufficiently treated, the sludge is separated from the clean water. The water is then clean enough to be returned to nature in, for example, ditches, streams, and canals. In this way, the water board ensures clean surface water, allowing us to enjoy recreation and ensuring that animals and plants can thrive in it.
Several years ago, the Vechtstromen Water Board began making its activities more sustainable and sought the assistance of Energiefonds Overijssel. With our focus on sustainable energy alternatives and energy saving, we contribute to the “Energy Factory” project, in which the remaining sludge is fermented in the three egg-shaped installations. The sludge goes in and is heated, resulting in the production of biogas plus a small amount of residual sludge. The generated biogas is converted into electricity via a combined heat and power plant (CHP plant), and part of this electricity is then reused by the Energy Factory itself. The surplus electricity is sufficient to supply energy to 3,500 households and is delivered to the grid. In this way, wastewater is utilized optimally, and electricity consumption comes from a sustainable source. The benefits of this are, firstly, the use of sustainably generated energy by the water board and households; secondly, significant cost savings for the water board as their energy bill decreases; and lower processing costs because less sludge remains at the end of the process. For the residents of Overijssel, this means that, in addition to their water board becoming more sustainable, it also remains financially healthy, which can have a positive effect on annual water board tax rates. Furthermore, it is a significant step toward the province’s ambition to obtain 20% of its energy from sustainable sources and achieve 6% energy savings by 2023.
Can the water board become even more sustainable?
The Energy Factory demonstrates that the activities of a water board ensure a more pleasant living environment and that we are continuing to work on making the province more sustainable in this way. Additionally, it can bring financial benefits for the residents of Overijssel and for the water board itself. For this new installation, the Vechtstromen Water Board had to make investments, and because it concerns the sustainability of energy, Energiefonds Overijssel provided a loan of €15 million. Now that phase 1 of the project has been successfully completed and the installation is delivering the predicted performance, a second phase can begin. In this phase, much more sludge will be brought locally from the region to this installation for processing, allowing even more sustainable energy to be generated and requiring less sludge to be processed as a residual product.
In addition, the Vechtstromen Water Board is working on realizing 7.2 hectares (an area larger than 12 football fields) of solar panels on the grounds of their water treatment plants. In this way, they are taking another step toward their goal of generating 40% of their own energy consumption sustainably by 2020. However, to actually realize these types of projects, the board of the water board must approve them, and citizens can influence such decisions by using their vote in the upcoming water board elections, for example.
What does your vote mean?
The general board of a water board consists of representatives of residents, farmers, businesses, and managers of nature reserves. The general board determines the policy of a water board and monitors whether the executive board implements it correctly. The board consists of 27 members, the majority of whom are residents of the province where the water board is located. During the water board elections, you can therefore choose a representative who looks after your interests in the general board; these candidates are often members of a political party. The other members are not chosen through elections. Since residents form the largest part of the general board, your vote can definitely make a difference!
Check the Vechtstromen Water Board website under water board elections to determine what kind of “water type” you are, to find out what is happening in your water region, and to see who you can vote for and what their positions are.
About Energiefonds Overijssel
Financing the energy transition is what we do at Energiefonds Overijssel. Primarily to contribute to 20 percent new energy in Overijssel by 2023, and ultimately to make the energy transition in the province possible. The fund is the first and largest regional energy fund in the Netherlands, founded in 2012 by the Province of Overijssel. We have now provided over 200 million in financing to sustainable and new energy projects in the province. These range from making homes and commercial real estate more sustainable, biogas plants, and solar roofs/parks to innovations such as the production of pyrolysis oil as an alternative green fuel. The Energy Factory project is one of these projects. Read more about Energiefonds Overijssel here.
