How the Morgental sewage treatment plant became an energy supplier

Morgental sewage treatment plant in Steinach, St. Gallen

With its energy park, AVM is one of the pioneers in Switzerland in the use of alternative energies and energy efficiency in sewage treatment plants. In 2009, AVM began developing an energy park on its site. Since then, the ‘Morgental Energy Park’ has grown continuously. The construction of a solar folding roof was an ideal fit for this, in order to advance the generation of green electricity. Another reason for the investment was the capacity expansion of the sewage treatment plant as well as another purification stage, which cleans hormones and medicines from the water: This doubled the electricity consumption of the sewage treatment plant.

With a module area of 5,378 m2 and 1,760 panels, the new solar power plant supplies 540,000 kWh/a, which is roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of 140 households. After about five months of construction, the folding solar roof was put into operation on 20 July 2021.