COMMISSIONING BIOLOGICAL WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANTS

At the end of the construction of the WWTP, and before officially handing over from the contractors to the company, the WWTP is usually subjected to the commissioning of the plant.

In most cases it involves the easier part of civil, electrical and mechanical engineering to see that the plant follows the specifications laid, and that the various equipments are functioning such as the pumps, blowers, motors.

This is usually the easiest part of commissioning and easy to see if there are any defects or replacements needed.

The most challenging part of the commissioning process is to see whether the built WWTP can function and treat the wastewaters to the standards of effluent required.

The period of commissioning can be short or even a few months to achieve depending on whether the process is complicated or the process of commissioning are properly carried out.

If the commissioning fails or take a long time to carry out then the handover will be delayed and so will be the stages of payment to the contractor. If it is carried out fast and successful the payment will be fast and a lot of money will be saved for labour and time. As for the owner it would mean that the WWTP could enter the service faster.

There are a few objectives in carrying out the commissioning procedure:

1 It will ensure the owner that the WWTP built is in compliance and can achieve the standards set
2 The process will allow detecting any possible errors
3To fine tune the process of the WWTP to be process efficient
4 To subject the WWTP to stress test to see its safety factor and range it can tolerate to treat wastes. This acts like guarantee!

Commissioning of biological WWTP is not as simple as just pushing the power supply button and let it the WWTP operates. It is a process where data needs to be monitored and collected for the duration of commissioning. These data will act as evidences that the commissioning of the WWTP is successful or not.

In most cases the WWTP designed might not function as expected from the blueprints. So experts are needed to commission the WWTP and suggest ways of overcoming the obstacles from which the engineers will take the necessary recuperative actions

Commissioning of WWTPs require long periods on site monitoring and adjustments. In most cases the failure to commission the WWTP is not so much due to the fault of the WWTP design but poor understanding of the process of commissioning and the process of wastewater treatment

Commissioning WWTP is a scientific operation which should be able to identify the steps of process failure taking steps to make it right. One of the most biggest and frequent blunder carried out by engineers or plant operators during commissioning is to pump the raw wastewaters as if the treatment plant is already 100% functional. No wonder most times it is not because the WWTP do not worked as designed but more due to failure of start up procedures and commissioning







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