Consumption of Electrical Energy in Water Supply and Wastewater Systems in Brazil

Abstract

Traditional processes adopted in water supply and wastewater systems consume large amounts of energy and generate relevant environmental impacts, since energy use is considered one of the largest anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases. The industry consumes 7% of all energy produced in the world, increasing the costs of operations that cannot be fully passed on to users, especially in developing countries such as Brazil. The worldwide projection of rising electricity prices further aggravates the situation, motivating a mapping of the energy efficiency of the sector in order to identify points of improvement. Several articles on the topic have already been published, but information for Brazil is scarce. This paper presents a review on the energy consumption in each stage of the water and wastewater sector, including the Brazilian scenario. Searches on the site www.sciencedirect.com, using as keywords wastewater, water, energy, consumption and Brazil and government websites resulted in 20 documents that compose this work. The objective of this work was to review the energy consumption in collective water supply and wastewater systems, from raw water abstraction to the final disposal of the treated sewage, by compiling information and adding data on the Brazilian scenario. In general, the current system is inefficient and require political integration in water and energy in order to overcome the challenges.