Energy Efficient Motors Drive Up The Savings
At Water Pumping Station To Almost
£1/2 Million In Award Winning Project
site upgrade at an historic
Thames Water pumping
station has given the 90
year old facility a new
lease of life, improving
performance and efficiency. Central to the
success of the upgrade were the systems
design and implementation capabilities of
Boulting Pump Management, using energy
efficient motors from WEG. Energy savings
expected from the project are close to five
million kilowatthours per annum – with
a correspondingly spectacular annual
energy cost reduction of £500,000.
A
The Littleton facility was designed in
the 1920s with four steam powered,
900mm discharge horizontal, double
suction, axially split case pumps, together
delivering 3.6m at the duty point and each
capable of supplying 340 megalitres of
water per day. In the 1950s, three pumps
were modified with electric motor drives,
but very little had been upgraded since.
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PECM Issue 23
Thames Water was keen to
implement a project that would
improve the efficiency of the
station and reduce the energy
costs. This long term project uses
the financial savings made from
improved efficiency to fund more
work on other stations. In addition
to the improved efficiency, Thames
Water also wanted to increase
average pump capacity up to
750 megalitres per day, simplify
start-up, maintenance and control
procedures and reduce operational
costs.
Remote facility operation
To meet these objectives, Thames
Water turned to long-standing project
upgrade partner the Boulting Group.
Along with improved performance, some
of the specific project requirements
included remote operation through an
automat ed control system – minimising
on-site personnel time which was making
operation of the facility time consuming
and costly.
The Pump Management division of
Boulting took a holistic approach to the
project, looking at upgrades to the pumps,
motors, gearboxes, drives and switchgear.
A new control system would also be
developed to simplify operation as well as
reduce energy consumption and enable
remote operation.
A key aspect of the project identified by
Boulting was the upgrade of the existing
motors and to address this aspect of the
upgrade the company turned to WEG.
Boulting has an excellent working
relationship with WEG, having worked
with the company for two years on various
projects to replace older, less efficient
motors with newer high efficiency models.