Hi @
@olderwiser, not only is Fluence's MABR a clear winner V centralised platforms, but also when comparing its financials to distributed network technology for rural settings. The following data was posted recently from Hebei Province:
You make a very salient point about our progress in China. We are still at the very early adopter stage (with under 100 working plants). However, more and more of the governments we are working with are seeing the benefits of MABR as compared to other distributed methods of wastewater treatment. For example, a small contract (approx. US$2.2m) for a plant in Zhenfeng County (Guizhou Province) was recently announced, with the government water supervisory body specifying MABR technology:
"For small sewage treatment plants, MABR process construction is easier, management and maintenance are simple, compared with mostThe computerized automatic control management system of modern urban sewage treatment plants, this process is more suitable for the underdeveloped township sewageIn the water treatment plant, the sewage treatment process of this project is planned to adopt the MABR process.:
http://www.qxn.gov.cn/zwgk/zfjg/zsthjj_5135146/bmxxgkml_5136490/xmhp_5135153/202009/P020200902538367361088.pdfPreviously, I have seen these tenders specifying A20 technology. It is one of our main technological competitors in the Chinese rural wastewater treatment space. You can see this process specified for use in this somewhat larger tender, in Nov 2018 tender in Guizhou Province (for 601 villages, 34 930 tonnes/day. equiv to 58t/village facility.) Total contract size was US$182m.
http://m.shuiol.com/news/show.php?itemid=1336Given government stated superiority, in the more recent tender, of MABR, it would appear that MABR would have been a better option than A20, if that earlier project was commissioned today; especially when you take into account the disadvantages of Activated Sludge:
MABR produces up to 50% less sludge than activated sludge; meaning less pumping is required, less sludge has to be stored, transported and disposed of; and it gives the added environmental benefit of halving the number of tankers on the roads.
Point 1 in the list above also informs why Fluence's partners are winning contracts at tourist locations in China. That is, highly fluctuating sewage volumes at different times: something Activated Sludge cannot handle.
How this fight for technological dominance plays out this year will be exciting to watch, especially in Hangzhou (Zhejiang Province) where MABR and A20 are the two technologies that have been selected for rural sewage treatment sites above 30L in 2021. Sources show that by the end of 2021 Hangzhou will build new treatment facilities to service 93 villages and benefit 56,400 farmers. By my measure this would be approximately a US$85m opportunity when compared in size to previous costs for similar work (and taking into account topography in the area). What percentage of this will go to MABR is the multi-million dollar question? I have a bit of info on this, but it requires another post. Apologies if this is difficult to read.
