Project Clearinghouse

Water Lab Stage 1

Sustainability Problem and Proposed Solution: 

Water scarcity and contamination are key problems environmentally and economically. This project aims to create an inexpensive and deployable decentralized wastewater treatment system that can treat wastewater to potable levels without a connection to an electrical grid.

Jump to: Contact | Project Description | Funding Sources | Metrics for Success | Results
Project Categories: 
Buildings & Facilities
Energy & Climate
Waste & Recycling
Water
Project Status: 
In Progress
Campus Organization: 
Carbon Fund
Affiliated Department, Unit or College: 
Technology Management
Project Location: 
Off campus

WaterLab (Watsonville, CA)


Stakeholder Contacts: 
Contact NameEmail AddressDepartment
Brent Haddad
bhaddad@ucsc.edu
Technology Management
Bryan Pratt
brpratt@ucsc.edu
Economics
Funding Sources: 
CarbonFund

Project Description: 

Urban wastewater treatment is an essential function to protect human health and the environment. Water reuse provides crucial additional water to cities. Both treatment and reuse require vast amounts of energy worldwide. This project develops a prototype decentralized wastewater treatment/reuse system combined with a decentralized renewable-energy microgrid. If successful, it could spur the development of potable reuse systems that reduce the GHG footprint of wastewater treatment and extend wastewater treatment to many unserved parts of the world. We propose to (1) build a bench-scale solar-powered wastewater treatment system, and (2) purchase/transfer parts of the actual system to UCSC’s WaterLab, located at the Watsonville Water Resources Center. A key to both systems is the programmable controller that will transfer available energy to the most-needed functions of the water treatment system - pumps, quality sensors, oxygenators, holding tanks, and a reverse osmosis system. Students will build WiFi-communication sensors, program the data controller, and manage the project.

Key milestones:
1. Bench scale microgrid system built and operational [Summer 2016]
2. System controller programmed [Summer 2016]
3. Battery purchased/delivered to WaterLab [Spring quarter 2016]

Wind turbine transferred and installed when funds are available.

Metrics for Success: 

The metric will be the quality of water produced by the treatment and the cost of producing that quality of water. The goal is to produce sufficiently high quality water at a lower cost than is currently available.

Result Categories: 
Infrastructure/Built Environment
Technology
Data Collection & Analysis
Results: 

The tangible results will be the effective performance of the system, which will serve as a proof of feasibility for the technology. The campus will know the project has been completed when the system can produce water meeting established standards, which will become higher as we progress through the stages of implementation.