Water & Wastewater Treatment

6 The PumPing STaTion - PumP and ValVe SuPPlemenT 2016 Case study Pump efficiency takes flight at Heathrow Airport T hree years ago the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) advised Heathrow Airport that it needed to reduce the passenger levy. The Water Services Division looked at how they could incor- porate more energy efficient measures into the airport's pumping system to reduce costs, and three years later reflects on the results. "At Heathrow Airport, we are committed to effectively and carefully managing the disposal of water to reduce the risk of environmental impact," says Ian Jolly, System Special- ist within the Water Services Section at Heathrow Airport. "With a workforce of over 76,000 and around 200,000 passengers passing through our terminals every day, it's fair to say that waste management is a considered a vital issue. "The main problem we face is the energy required to pump wastewater from the airport, which is naturally built on extremely flat land. Added to this is the fact that we receive no flushing water from rain, so the airport exterior alone requires over 100 wastewater pumping stations, discharg- ing 80 litres of water to the sewage treatment works every second, to combat this." These range from small packaged pumping stations to large multi-pump installations with a combined holding capacity of 2,500m 3 . "In 2013 the Civil Aviation Authority advised that we would need to reduce our passenger levy from £22 to £19, meaning Heathrow Airport needed to cut costs by more than £600M over a five-year period. As a result, cost reduction was reviewed by all depart- ments and for the Water Services Section, our main aim was to reduce energy consumption through energy efficiency and better procurement of pumping equipment." The Water Services Section commis- sioned Xylem Water Solutions UK a™er investigating the terminal's operational requirements and the most effective means of achieving this. Xylem undertook a trial on the cargo area near terminal four, which itself has ten wastewater pumping stations and a further four stormwater stations. "A™er reviewing Ian's requirements for the cargo area, we recommended the use of our Flygt Experior range," said Guy Fitzpatrick, Strategic Relationship General Manager at Xylem Water Solutions UK. "The Flygt Experior range consists of an intelligent pump controller, high efficiency motor and adaptive 'N' impeller hydraulics. All these factors work interactively with each other to deliver the lowest cost of ownership for wastewater pumping stations, making the range the ideal solution for Heathrow." Guy and his engineering colleagues from Xylem installed two of its Flygt Experior Adaptive 'N' submersible sewage pumps and two SmartRun Intelligent Pump Controllers in the cargo area's sewage wet well in less than six hours. Guy continues: "The use of adaptive N hydraulics in the Flygt range makes it With more than 100 wastewater pumping stations, Heathrow Airport was able to make significant energy and cost savings by putting the focus on efficiency Xylem's Flygt 'N' range of submersible pumps (opposite) were used at the airport

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