The Rijnland Water Board has started a major renovation of the Haarlem Waarderpolder wastewater treatment plant. ICT Group will realize the process automation of the extremely complex installation. An additional challenge: the treatment plant must continue to run during construction.

Haarlem Waarderpolder (HWP) is one of the largest projects of the Rijnland Water Authority. The outdated wastewater treatment plant on the east side of Haarlem will be given a 'makeover' to meet the new requirements for water quality and to accommodate the growth of residents and businesses in the region. If the treatment plant is completed in 2031 as planned, it will be able to process the wastewater of some 296 thousand households and businesses with a capacity of 9,000 cubic meters of wastewater per hour. The wastewater treatment plant will also process the sewage sludge from other treatment plants in Rijnland to make energy-rich biogas. 

In close cooperation with Rijnland, ICT Group will realize the process automation for the new treatment plant. "At Rijnland, we have a framework agreement with three ICT suppliers, who do many automation projects with us and know our software standards well," says Peter Dubbelman. He is technical manager integrality on the project from Rijnland. "After a mini-competition, ICT Group emerged as the winner. In the assessment, we looked at quality, cost control and who provided the best team with the right project experience for this project and vision for the technical elaboration." ICT Group is involved in a large number of renovation projects of sewage treatment plants in our country. The existing process automation of Haarlem Waarderpolder was also built by ICT Group. 

 

"Because of the integral interplay of purification and sludge processing, we opted for one partner that makes all the control software"

Peter Dubbelman
Peter Dubbeldam

One partner for all control software 

The radical renovation of the treatment plant with a large part of new construction will be carried out in phases in the coming years. Two contractor consortia have been appointed to build a new waterline and a new silt line. Five engineering firms are working on the design of the new wastewater treatment plant. "Because of the integral interplay of purification and sludge processing, we opted for one partner that makes all the control software," explains Dubbelman. "Process automation must be able to control this complex accurately. The complexity also lies in the various conversion steps. Everything must continue to function properly and understandably for the operators. They also have to master automation and be able to work with it properly and easily."

Growing and purifying at the same time 

An additional challenge is that the current treatment plant must continue to run during the renovation and the new construction. New installations will be added, such as the post-treatment of the purified water. Installations that are no longer needed will be taken out of operation. Temporary installations are also needed for sludge processing, among other things. "We have to translate this dynamic into process automation in order to be able to control all the different installations at the right time," says consultant and design leader PA Jurg Bremmer of ICT Group. "The operating system must be able to support this transition flawlessly. Not only per installation, but also to monitor the entire process. For example, the volume of incoming wastewater can vary. When it rains, a lot of water enters the treatment plant. The processes must be designed for this. With smart ICT solutions, we can proactively control the treatment steps of the water further down the process. Security is also an important point." 

Based on the software standards that Rijnland uses for its process automation, ICT Group also wants to develop standard building blocks that are also suitable for process automation at other Rijnland treatment plants. "This makes the control software ready for the future," adds project leader PA Marcel Struike of ICT Group. The new treatment plant in Haarlem will apply the Nereda® technology, which is already in use at a large number of sewage treatment plants. Many of these treatment plants in the Netherlands ICT Group took care of the process automation. "For Rijnland, the Nereda is a new technology. So we are taking our knowledge with us to this project," says Struike. The renovation and new construction will start in early 2026. 

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