ABB drives cut pumping costs for Welsh Water

Application: Pumps

Industry: Water and wastewater treatment

Challenge:

Welsh Water needed to pump water to, and sewage away from, roads on new housing estates. The existing solution consisted of motor control centres (MCCs) with their own PLC and human-machine interface. They were costly and complex as they needed to be customised for each scheme and had to be sourced from three specialised manufacturers. With customised software required for each one, there was also an extended lead time needed for the deployment of each MCC. Welsh Water specified its requirements for new kiosks to ABB, who passed on the work to APDS as we have particular expertise within the water sector.

APDS Solution:

Each kiosk contains two pumps, operating in duty/standby mode, each controlled by an ABB drive for water and wastewater applications, housed in IP54 enclosures. This would enable its engineers to easily adjust the kiosks’ pumping regime to meet the needs of housing developments as they expand. As well as being able to do this as efficiently as possible, Welsh Water had another major requirement and that was to have its own pressure and flow parameters incorporated in the drive software.

Benefits:

By installing variable-speed drives into their roadside pumping kiosks Welsh Water is not only set to dramatically reduce the cost of its roadside, it will also achieve the control it wanted to give its engineers to make expanding the system easier.

• User’s own pressure and flow parameters are incorporated into the drive software, enabling pumping regimes to be easily changed as estates expand
• Customised control panel displays with error messages familiar to the company’s engineers

Conclusion:

Up to 20 kiosks a year are to be installed. Each kiosk contains two pumps, each driven by an ABB ACQ810 drive, up to 22 kW, in duty/ standby mode, housed in IP54 enclosures. The kiosks come complete with a generator changeover panel. The generator is external and brought to site in the event of an emergency.  The changeover panel has a specific type of connector fitted, allowing the generator to be connected very quickly.