eVortex: A Novel Energy Harvesting Mechanism for Waste and Storm Water Conveyance Systems

Energy recovery from wastewater is gaining significance as utilities work toward achieving energy neutrality and sustainability in their wastewater collection and treatment systems. In this paper, an energy harvesting mechanism to harvest the excess kinetic energy available from drop structures that are installed within sewer and storm water conveyance systems is proposed. There are thousands of sewer drop structures installed across North America with heights up to 90m transporting billions of gallons of wastewater year around. An energy harvesting device called “eVortex” which was specifically designed to be retrofitted within an advanced version of drop structure called “vortex drop structure” (VDS) is described. The device consists of a low cost self-cleansing turbine integrated with an axial flux electrical generator. This paper presents the results obtained from a numerical modeling exercise undertaken to design and optimize the turbine geometry. Various performance characteristics including the mechanical power generation capacity are presented.