Combined Solar Technologies' Hybrid Plant: Using Wastewater and Olive Pits to Produce Clean Water and Clean Energy

摘要

Combined Solar Technologies (CST) has designed, built, owns, and operates a water purification system located at the Musco Family Olive Co. facility in Tracy, Calif., that burns olive pits to purify highly saline wastewater through a distillation process while also producing electric power. For its pioneering approach, CST is the winner of POWER'S 2012 Marmaduke Award for excellence in plant problem-solving. The award is named for Marmaduke Surfaceblow, the fictional marine engineer and plant troubleshooter par excellence, whose exploits were chronicled in POWER beginning in 1948. Featured in the Discovery Channel's recent television special "Powering the Future," the Combined Solar Technologies' (CST) innovative water purification system began operating in 2010. The Musco Family Olive Co. hired CST to help its plant - the largest olive-canning facility in the U.S. - better meet the California Water Board's wastewater treatment standards. The facility's one-of-a-kind system validated CST's concept of using biomass fuel combustion for wastewater treatment. The system was designed to generate 375 kWh of electricity and operates year-round.