D.C. Water is taking the first step toward becoming the District's largest green energy producer.

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The wastewater treatment facility broke ground on two massive construction projects Tuesday, totaling $1.4 billion. Within three years, those projects will make water processed at the plant leave cleaner than ever before.

“It's a big construction project,” said D.C. Water General Manager George Hawkins. “We're building a big power plant right here at the facility.”

At $440 million, the first project will turn wastewater solids into 13 megawatts of energy, enough to power 8,500 homes. D.C. Water will use that power cut its energy use by a third.

“While energy use otherwise would have been going up, in our case, despite more people in the region, we're serving more customers, we're taking more flow and our carbon footprint is dropping by over 30 percent,” said Hawkins.

When built, the power plant will be the largest of its kind in the world, the first at a wastewater treatment facility in North America.

“I suspect you will see this happen all over the country, it's just too good of an idea not to have it spread, once it's proven,” said Hawkins.

With the second project, DC Water is spending $950 million removing nitrogen from the water to clean the Chesapeake Bay.

“You have lots of nutrients going into the Bay, all this algae grows, it decomposes, it takes out oxygen and you have these zones where things can't live because there's not enough oxygen in the water,” said Hawkins.

The projects are happening as DC Water proposes raising rates by 11.5 percent next year. Hawkins says the power plant will pay for itself in seven years and reduce operational costs by $20 million a year.

“What it usually means is their bill won't go up as much as it would have otherwise,” said Hawkins. “Will there be an actual reduction in bills? Probably not.”