Water & Wastewater Treatment

WWT September 2016

Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine

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18 | SEPTEMBER 2016 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Project focus: Wastewater treatment entire wastewater estate. The knowledge gained from this study allowed Lontra to take a fresh look at the challenges faced in wastewater treatment and to design a solution specifically optimised to the needs of the industry as a whole. The results were so encouraging that Severn Trent agreed to part- fund a full scale trial alongside the Carbon Trust in a real time production environment at Worcester Wastewater Treatment Works. Interestingly, this was where the first large scale wastewater aeration system burst onto the scene almost a century ago. The Blade Compressor was first run at Worcester in September 2012. A-er running full time as a 'duty blower' without issue for more than seven months, Severn Trent acknowledged its core reliability and performance. The site's instrumentation and supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) showed that the conventional blowers used more than 20 per cent more electricity to deliver an equivalent amount of air when compared to the Blade Compressor. These remarkable results prompted Severn Trent Water's chief executive, in a presentation of preliminary results in May 2013, to report that, were the Lontra Blade Compressor to be rolled out across all of Severn Trent's wastewater treatment works, the company could save more than as well as the crucial efficiency gains, was the compressor's simple design. It enabled easy implementation since the compressor was designed with well understood and proven materials and engineering. The bearings are traditional and the rotor runs at low speed, being directly coupled to the motor without step-up gearboxes or belt drives. This combination fits well with the needs of an industry that requires minimal downtime and long service life from its assets and by the end of the trial, the Blade Compressor had been running for more than 10,000 hours, the equivalent of more than three years of normal operation without issue, demonstrating its superior performance. Manufacture of machines incorporating the Blade Compressor technology by Lontra's partner Sulzer has now begun, with production compressors shipping to Severn Trent and their equivalents across Europe. Energy demands and costs continue to escalate across all aspects of our global society, and businesses face increased competition as a result. Fast-adopted technology breakthroughs such as the new form of air compressor offered by the - now proven - Lontra Blade Compressor have the potential to provide the water and wastewater industries with a "triple win", being oil free, energy efficient and reliable. £1.8M a year in electricity costs. Not only this, but there would be a proportionate reduction in the company's overall carbon emissions of three per cent. The magnitude of the potential savings was enough for Severn Trent to consider a large scale replacement programme. To confirm the saving beyond doubt, it was decided that the on-site instrumentation for the Blade Compressor and the comparative blower should be upgraded to laboratory standard. Consultant ABB was engaged to specify and supply the instrumentation of Orifice plates – compliant to ISO standard 5167 – which replaced the existing flowmeters being used across the plant. The data from this instrumentation was logged for seven months between June 2013 and December 2013 covering all conditions, from Summer to Winter, to give a view of the true saving potential of the Blade Compressor in a fully operational wastewater treatment works. The upgraded instrumentation demonstrated that from summer to winter, over 7 months continual logging, the Lontra Blade Compressor used – on average – 21.2 per cent less electricity to deliver an equivalent amount of air when compared to the existing blowers at the facility. Equally important to Severn Trent,

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