Water & Wastewater Treatment

10 WWT PUMP AND VALVE SUPPLEMENT 2019 T he cost of maintaining pumps is oen underestimated along with the role they play. But the way they are monitored is changing with data now forming a key part of the process. When sewage has to be pumped, it enters a pumping station and is collected in the wet well. As the level rises, a pump is eventually triggered to start, and this pumps the sewage on to its next destination which could be a sewage treatment works or another pumping station. "We use pumps at various different parts of the process from source to tap," notes Pompa. "From when it leaves a customer's house, most of the time it ends up at a pumping station and then sewage is potentially transferred to another pumping station or directly to a treatment works where it could then be pumped through several different processes." These processes can include sludge, intermediate or recirc pumping. "Pumps are used throughout the whole water recycling process," adds Pompa. "It's a very important part of our process. Different pumps are doing different activities." So how does the company measure the performance of pumps? "At a smaller pumping station we're measuring basic performance measures, such as how long the pump is running for," remarked Pompa. "We monitor basic performance to start off with – is it running or not running? "We also have moving performance indicators such as the wet well level, what's coming into the site and what's leaving the site in terms of litres per second (the flow). "We're also doing some innovative projects on a certain amount of stations where we're measuring the pressure on rising mains at high resolution sample rates to detect bursts and pick up on deviations of performance on pumps." On wastewater, water companies are tasked with trying to reduce the number of pollution incidents. A wet well can overflow and spill raw sewage – and if this happens water companies can be fined by the Environment Agency. Having recently rolled out several pressure monitors onto its pumping stations, Anglian Water has been able to detect bursts, and this in turn has allowed the company to reduce its pollution impact on the environment. Notes Pompa: "If we can get to the burst before anyone calls it in, and we The changing role of pumps Anglian Water's 6,500 pumping stations play a key role in transporting water from one site to another, with the pumps also able to circulate wastewater in treatment systems. Lorenzo Pompa, asset optimisation engineer at Anglian Water, discusses the changing role of pumps and how the company is using data to get the most out of existing assets and infrastructure. Lorenzo Pompa installing a reverse pumping process at River Lane pumping station in Elton, Peterborough. Interview

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