INDEPENDENT AND COMPETENT ADVICE

The FiW has not only been a project developer but also a reliable partner for many clients in the municipal and industrial water and waste management sector. It’s consulting services and knowledge transfer have proven a great success. As a competent consultant the FiW is a partner for public and private operators of wastewater treatment plants, sewer networks and waste disposal facilities. We offer expertise for the optimisation of plants as well as for the development of innovative concepts. Our consulting services include the realisation of coordination tasks, studies, expert statements, profitability analyses and simulations at the national and international level. The focus is on industrial wastewater consulting, especially for the paper and textile industries, and on anaerobic treatment issues, as well as on running energy analyses.

As a non-profit, independent institute associated with the RWTH Aachen University, the FiW is also attractive for small and medium-sized industry companies because it reaches the interface between basic research and practice. With its practical work experience and the economic focus, the FiW is perfectly positioned to bring these together for their clients.

In cooperation with our clients, we develop customized recommendations for action for all aspects of water, energy and waste management and support their implementation. With the expertise of our interdisciplinary team, we analyse both technical interdependencies and economic, legal and social conditions. We carry out system analyses and use prognosis models and multi-criteria decision-making processes to develop forward-looking action concepts and ensure that they achieve their objectives with practical guidelines and monitoring concepts. Even at the planning stage, risks must be systematically recorded in order to evaluate measures for risk minimisation. In this context, risks with a relatively low probability of occurrence but possibly a high extent of damage must also be considered.

For many years, the FiW has been dealing with the assessment of fees and contributions and the financing of actions in water and waste management. The focus of the work is the creation of a well-founded decision-making basis concearning the updating of regulations for the distribution of costs, relevant to fees and contributions. The scientific support of processes for the development and optimisation of assessment rules begins with an analysis of the current situation and the identification of the need for action. For this purpose, existing data are systematically processed and evaluated. In this context, it must be examined whether water management, technical or legal requirements and framework conditions, and thus the cost and utilisation structures, have changed. We deal with questions of contribution assessment, especially in the areas of wastewater disposal and watercourse management. This includes, for example, the changeover from the fresh water scale to separated wastewater and rainwater charges, the introduction of heavy polluter surcharges or a basic and service charge. As part of the development of fee and charge models, the FiW also supports municipalities and associations in the implementation of accompanying working groups and the information of citizens and members.