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2026-10-09Key Facts: The first-phase Reclaimed Water Reuse Project in Nansha District, Guangzhou, achieved full completion and entered trial operation on 2026年9月. The project is a non-government-invested municipal engineering project, with a total investment of 13606.04万 yuan and a design capacity of 3万 tons/day. It adopts the process of "pretreatment + biochemical treatment + advanced filtration + ultraviolet disinfection," and the effluent simultaneously meets the dual-standard requirements of GB/T 18920-2022 and GB/T 18921-2019. It is expected to save over 1000万 tons of high-quality tap water annually, and reduce COD by approximately 280 tons and ammonia nitrogen by approximately 35 tons.
I. Project Positioning: A Piece of the Puzzle in the Core Area of the Greater Bay Area
The project is located in the core development area of Nansha District, Guangzhou, with its service scope covering key functional clusters such as Jiaomen River and Phoenix Lake. These two areas serve as showcase windows for the urban image and ecological carrying capacity of Nansha New Area, and are also where the demand for municipal miscellaneous use and landscape water replenishment is most concentrated—road sweeping, greenbelt irrigation, river ecological water replenishment, and cooling water for public facilities all have considerable daily consumption, and have long relied on high-quality tap water.
Using tap water to irrigate green spaces and wash roads is a clear misallocation in resource accounting. The value of a Reclaimed Water Reuse project lies precisely in separating this category of water demand that "does not require drinking water quality" from the tap water system and assigning it to reclaimed water.
II. Technical Solution: A Dual-Standard Advanced Treatment Route
- Process route—adopts a four-stage combination of "pretreatment + biochemical treatment + advanced filtration + ultraviolet disinfection." The first three stages are responsible for progressively reducing Suspended Solids, organic matter, and nutrients, while the terminal ultraviolet disinfection provides assurance for the hygienic indicators of reuse scenarios, avoiding the residual chlorine and disinfection by-product issues associated with chlorination.
- Dual-standard effluent compliance—water quality stably meets the dual requirements of the "Urban Sewage Recycling and Reuse—Urban Miscellaneous Water Quality" (GB/T 18920-2022) and the "Urban Sewage Recycling and Reuse—Landscape Environmental Water Quality" (GB/T 18921-2019). This means the same stream of effluent can simultaneously cover both miscellaneous use and landscape scenarios, greatly broadening the disposal channels.
- Application scenarios—can be widely used for road sweeping, greenbelt irrigation, river ecological water replenishment, and cooling water for public facilities, all of which are typical scenarios with stable demand and predictable consumption in the core area of Nansha.
- Intelligent configuration—key procurement items include integrated MBR membrane modules, high-efficiency energy-saving pump units, intelligent chemical dosing systems, online water quality monitoring instruments, and a SCADA automated monitoring platform, emphasizing domestic content ratio, technological advancement, and full-lifecycle operation and maintenance adaptability.
III. The Real Highlight: Model Innovation in Non-Government Investment
If only scale and process were discussed, this would be a conventional Reclaimed Water Reuse project. What truly deserves attention is the investment and financing model—the project is explicitly a non-government-invested construction project, with the total investment of 13606.04 万 yuan borne by the enterprise, featuring the distinctive characteristics of "market-oriented operation, specialized construction, and industrialized operation."
The implication behind these terms is that the project is not built with fiscal appropriations and then handed over to a public institution to operate, but rather the investor bears the construction cost itself and recovers the investment and obtains returns through long-term operation. This brings about two changes:
- The investor has the incentive to solidify demand—since returns come from the actual water supply volume during the operation period, users must be locked in advance, the pipe network must be implemented, and water quality stability must be ensured, rather than "completion upon construction."
- Technical requirements become internalized—non-compliant effluent means users refuse to accept it and returns fall through, so reliability shifts from a "performance indicator" to a "survival condition," making equipment selection lean toward high efficiency, energy savings, and intelligent operation and maintenance rather than simply minimizing initial investment.
The path explored by the project is summarized as "enterprise investment, government regulation, market operation, public benefit"—the government steps back to the role of regulator, handing construction and operation to market entities, while the public gains more stable municipal services and a better water environment.
IV. Benefit Calculation: Both Environmental and Economic Accounts Are Clear
- Water-saving benefits — an estimated annual saving of over 1000万 tons of high-quality tap water. Based on a scale of 3万 tons/day, this is equivalent to removing this portion of municipal miscellaneous water demand from the tap water system entirely, directly reducing regional water supply pressure.
- Emission reduction benefits — an estimated annual reduction of approximately 280 tons of COD and approximately 35 tons of ammonia nitrogen. Reclaimed Water Reuse also reduces the pollution load from wastewater treatment plant tailwater directly discharged into rivers, making a direct contribution to water quality improvement in sensitive water bodies such as Jiaomen River and Fenghuang Lake.
- System benefits — upon completion, the project will also reduce the terminal load of the wastewater treatment plant and provide technical standards and operational paradigms to support subsequent Phase II expansion and the interconnection of the district-wide reclaimed water pipeline network.
It is worth noting that the project is positioned as a "first phase," and the technical standards and operational experience it delivers will directly determine the path for subsequent Phase II expansion and district-wide pipeline network interconnection — the demonstration value of the first-phase project may exceed its own capacity value.
V. Policy Background: Reclaimed Water Is Becoming a Mandatory Option
The implementation of the Nansha project echoes the intensive policies recently issued:
- The Regulations on Urban Drainage and Wastewater Treatment (State Council Decree No. 843) took effect on 2026年8月15日. Article 37 explicitly stipulates that industrial production, urban greening, road cleaning, vehicle washing, construction, and ecological landscapes shall give priority to the use of Reclaimed Water, and Reclaimed Water shall be incorporated into the unified allocation of water resources.
- The Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China took effect concurrently. Article 183 requires governments at or above the county level to coordinate the construction of wastewater resource utilization infrastructure.
- Shandong Province, in its Action Plan for Comprehensively Building a Water-Saving Institutional and Policy System (2026–2030年), proposed that by 2030年, the province's urban Reclaimed Water utilization rate reach 60%; Qingdao has already required that urban miscellaneous use and landscaping in areas covered by the pipeline network and meeting water quality standards give priority to Reclaimed Water.
The policy-side emphasis on "priority use" and "unified allocation" is pushing Reclaimed Water from a supplementary water source toward a conventional water source, while market-side non-government-invested projects have verified that this transformation possesses commercial sustainability.
VI. TIANYI TECH's Perspective
TIANYI TECH Co., Ltd. believes that what the industry should learn most from the Nansha project is not the scale of 3万 tons/day, but rather that it proves Reclaimed Water Reuse can be viable without financial backstopping. To judge whether a Reclaimed Water project is sustainable, three things are key: whether the demand side has rigid and measurable users; whether water quality can stably meet multiple standards to broaden disposal channels; and whether operations can reduce full-lifecycle costs through intelligent means. Nansha has given affirmative answers on all three points, and this is also the basic framework that future municipal Reclaimed Water projects should follow.
About TIANYI TECH Co., Ltd. (TIANYI LIMITED)
TIANYI TECH Co., Ltd. specializes in the fields of wastewater treatment, Reclaimed Water Reuse, and water resource recycling, providing one-stop services from process consulting, solution design, equipment integration, and engineering implementation to smart operations and maintenance. The company is committed to advancing wastewater resource utilization through technological innovation, helping industrial enterprises and municipal clients achieve multiple goals including water conservation and carbon reduction, compliance discharge, and sustainable development.
Source: Comprehensive compilation from Zhongxiangwang Project Database "In-Depth Interpretation of the Guangdong Nansha District Reclaimed Water Reuse First-Phase Project" (2026年9月 latest progress report), "Urban Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse — Water Quality Standard for Urban Miscellaneous Water Consumption" (GB/T 18920-2022), and "Urban Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse — Water Quality Standard for Scenic Environment Use" (GB/T 18921-2019)
