Find out more below about our third WRE Conference and Exhibition Speakers and their talks for the opening session on Day 2 of the conference:
Denis Guilbert
Managing Director, Vendée Eau, France
As an urban engineer, Denis GUILBERT has been working in the water and wastewater sector for over 25 years. After spending 13 years in the largest wastewater authority in Paris, he was in charge of the water cycle at Nantes Métropole for 10 years. For the past 2 years, he has been Managing Director of Vendée Eau, the drinking water utility for the entire Vendée region (700,000 inhabitants).
Keynote: The Jourdain IPR demonstrator in Vendée – A teaser before visiting the water purification unit
In the Vendée region, natural water resources depending on surface water dams are suffering the effects of climate change and increasing demand. In addition to conventional solutions already in place, Vendée Eau, the territory public utility responsible for drinking water production and distribution, aims to reclaim a part of the large volumes of treated wastewater, currently discharged into the open sea, which represents a very significant potential for augmenting water surface resources for drinking water. The demonstrator, named JOURDAIN, between the Sables-d’Olonne WWT plant and the Jaunay reservoir, consists of i) a water purification unit, ii) a pumping station and a 27km transfer pipe and iii) a vegetated buffer zone (artificial wetland). It corresponds to ¼ (150 m3/h) of the anticipated final full-scale scheme (600 m3/h). With a program spread over 4 years, the Jourdain project will aim at confirming the relevance and performance of the project to all stakeholders: end-users, regulators, politics and citizen associations. The presentation will describe the principle of the project, the actions implemented, and will focus in particular on the water purification unit, which will be the subject of the technical visit at the end of the conference.
Julien Orsoni
Project Manager, Prospective Studies, Vendée Eau, France
Julien Orsoni is an engineer in water sciences. After 13 years in a technical design office, he joined Vendée Eau in 2016 to be project leader of the project JOURDAIN, for the reuse of treated wastewater to secure drinking water in the long term in Vendée.
Presentation: The Jourdain IPR demonstrator in Vendée – A teaser before visiting the water purification unit
In the Vendée region, natural water resources depending on surface water dams are suffering the effects of climate change and increasing demand. In addition to conventional solutions already in place, Vendée Eau, the territory public utility responsible for drinking water production and distribution, aims to reclaim a part of the large volumes of treated wastewater, currently discharged into the open sea, which represents a very significant potential for augmenting water surface resources for drinking water. The demonstrator, named JOURDAIN, between the Sables-d’Olonne WWT plant and the Jaunay reservoir, consists of i) a water purification unit, ii) a pumping station and a 27km transfer pipe and iii) a vegetated buffer zone (artificial wetland). It corresponds to ¼ (150 m3/h) of the anticipated final full-scale scheme (600 m3/h). With a program spread over 4 years, the Jourdain project will aim at confirming the relevance and performance of the project to all stakeholders: end-users, regulators, politics and citizen associations. The presentation will describe the principle of the project, the actions implemented, and will focus in particular on the water purification unit, which will be the subject of the technical visit at the end of the conference.
