Lithuania. UAB Vilniaus vandenys

The 18-year-maturity loan totalling EUR 10.3 million has been provided for financing the construction of a sludge treatment facility at a wastewater treatment plant in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The storage capacity of the wastewater treatment plant is not sufficient for the sludge produced in the water purification process. The facility will digest the sludge, producing biogas, which will then be utilised in a combined heat and power plant. The sludge processing will also produce granules for use in covering landfill areas, as fertiliser, or as fuel for incineration plants.

UAB Vilniaus Vandenys is a water utility company owned by four municipalities, including the city of Vilnius. The project, costing altogether EUR 60 million, is being co-financed by the EU Cohesion Fund, the City of Vilnius, from the company’s own budget and with the NIB loan.

As a result of Vilniaus vandenys’s sludge treatment project, sludge management, emissions to air and the mitigating measures to reduce odour from the company’s sludge treatment operation will be in compliance with NIB’s environmental requirements. Given the fact that the number of households and industries connected to the wastewater treatment plant is limited and the generation of sludge is fairly low, the potential for environmental enhancement is limited. The project will, however, lead to a significant decrease of CO2 emissions. Additionally, discharges of landfill leachates to the rivers leading to the Baltic Sea will decrease as no wet sludge will be landfilled.

The project fully qualifies as an environmental investment out of which 80% qualifies under NIB’s Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (CLEERE) and 20% under the Baltic Sea Environment Financing (BASE) lending facilities.