Water & Wastewater Treatment

Interview 4 THE PUMPING STATION - PUMP AND VALVE SUPPLEMENT 2016 75 Years since the BPMA was formed in 1941. A not-for-pro t trade association representing the interests of UK and Irish suppliers of liquid pump and pumping equipment, it was incorporated as a company in 2009. 80 The number of BPMA member companies. BPMA members supply 85% of the pumps in the UK market, with the pump sector also being a net exporter. £1BN The approximate size of the UK market for pumps. The BPMA publishes a buyer's guide and also runs technical training courses for its members. Interview by James Brockett P eter Reynolds, who was elected in January as president of the British Pump Manufacturers Association (BPMA), is certainly an experienced hand in the pumping industry. As Managing Director of Grundfos Pumps, he has worked with pumps for almost 40 years, and has been involved with the BPMA – which represents the interests of pump manufacturers and distributors - for more than a dozen. Few people are as well positioned to discuss how pumping technology and the demands of pump buyers, including water utilities, are changing. As he begins a two-year term as BPMA president, Reynolds says his aim is to positively in„ uence both the sector and the business environment that it operates in. The association's activities include both lobbying the government – for example, it is pressing the authorities to stamp down on illegal pump imports – and promoting best practice among pump users (for example, it is currently promoting a systems-wide approach to reducing energy use). It also provides technical, regulatory and legal advice to its members. Reynolds says that while pump manufacturers are constantly making marginal improvements on eˆ ciency, on non-clogging characteristics and on the materials used, the most exciting developments currently are around the way information from the pump links in with wider systems. "I think the biggest changes we see in the water utility industry and other pumping applications are connectivity, accessibility of information, data monitoring on site, and the whole digitalisation agenda," he says. "We are seeing pumps become more and more connected to bigger systems, so people look at the holistic approach rather than the pump in isolation. We're seeing controls, monitoring and cloud-based telemetry that can reduce the operating costs and increase the whole eˆ ciency of the station." Such a technological approach will allow pumping station users to go beyond simple control of pumps to everything in the station, including valves and ventilation. Reynolds says that more and more manufacturers are putting signiŽ cant investment into this 'internet of things' vision, and that those that don't risk being le' behind. However, the fact that di" erent telemetry protocols are used in the industry is currently a limiting factor, and he feels that in the end there will need to be standardisation in this area. "Ultimately I'm sure we'll go to one common protocol - that's the way it's going to go. Di" erent manufacturers are running di" erent protocols, when what's needed is an open protocol that allows everything to talk to everything else. At the moment, that's utopia. I don't think this will be legislated on by the government; I think it will be the desire of the marketplace that drives it forward." As far as water utilities are concerned, an important shi' in AMP6 has been the new emphasis on calculating the Totex cost of projects and asset inventions. In theory, this should mean the factoring in of energy, maintenance and lifecycle costs in pump procurement rather than just up-front capital costs. Reynolds believes that this attitude has permeated some parts of the sector but not others. "We are seeing more emphasis on Totex and whole-life cost models being used by the tier one contractors in BPMA in numbers ‰ The pump industry continues to invest in technology which will allow greater connectivity and data gathering, says Peter Reynolds, president of the British Pump Manufacturers Association

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