case study: Bristol Water

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The Problem

Bristol Water was concerned to improve the energy efficiency of its pumping equipment at its Purton pumping station.The original pumping equipment had been installed in 1963 and tests showed that it had fallen below a good standard of efficiency. A review of the site recommended new pumping plant that would be more suited to the duty we now have. This would see the pumps reduced in number from five to three and making them all the same size.The pumping station, which has a capacity of 70 mega litres per day, takes water from a canal and pumps it to a water treatment works and other industry down stream. The original installation used direct-on-line starters, which were unable to match flow to
demand,

The Solution

Bristol Water asked ABB Drives Alliance Partner, APDS, to improve the installation.
Working closely with Pumps and Energy the design and specification of the new high performance pump end and  the refurbishment of the existing Sulzer pump , APDS carried out a turnkey solution, upgrading the pump and power train. APDS installed two transformers, three new pump ends with ABB Eff1 high efficiency motors and three 400kW ABB industrial drives. These were low harmonic drives to comply with the G5/4 regulations.

Following the installation, the 40 mega litre pumps went from consuming 560 kW down to 240kW, an improvement in efficiency from 68% to 87%. Bristol Water now has better flow control and can match flow to demand . Often they only need to run one pump. As demand increases and the first pump
approaches full capacity, they switch in the second pump. The load is then shared equally between
the pumps, with the first being slowed down and the second being speeded up to match it. Another major benefit was that, before the project, the pumps were supplied at 3.3kV. This meant that they were restricted in a high voltage area and needed operators with high voltage experience to service them. The new drives and pumps are low voltage and so operators can reset them and do not need high voltage experience.

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