300MW a year AD facility for Canadian brewery

Effluent from the new Molson Coors Brewery in Fraser Valley, British Columbia, will be handled by a Global Water Engineering high wastewater pretreatment facility built by the City of Chilliwack.

Molson Coors new $CAD 200 million brewery will produce beverages from mountain fed water at the foot of the North Cascade Mountains. Wastewater from the new brewery will be pumped to the new Chilliwack pretreatment facility, adjacent to existing municipal treatment works. The pretreatment facility will process the wastewater through anaerobic process. From there it will pass to the existing Chilliwack Waste Water Treatment plant.

“As a bonus, the plant will also be able to produce biogas from the anaerobic digestion process. A portion of this will be used initially to heat the wastewater entering the anaerobic reactor, replacing any need to use fossil fuels to power the heating process involved,” said Ian Page, vice president Global Water and Energy, in a statement.

“The excess biogas generated will also ultimately be available for resale commercially, adding to the financial and environmental benefits of the pretreatment plant.”

“Based on results already achieved for Molson Coors and at GWE wastewater treatment and waste-to-energy plants in North America and worldwide, the plant could ultimately achieve average daily biogas product of over 900 kW a day, or 300 MW a year if commercial customers are found.”

The City of Chilliwack’s ANUBIX - B plant’s design is based on an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) type of anaerobic reactor, which accepts relatively high amounts of biodegradable suspended solids (SS) in the influent, according to the GWE statement.

Its high removal efficiency (85 - 95% BOD and COD removal) allows users to install smaller aerobic polishing treatment afterwards, while achieving low excess sludge production and power consumption in the small-footprint aeration polishing stage, the company states.