NEWS


Water key to climate change resilience


This spring’s intense dry spell is a sign of things to come and water companies need to be prepared to avoid water shortages, Environment Minister Lord Henley has warned. His comments came as Defra published reports from water utilities in England and Wales identifying the risks that climate change will pose to their service, and what actions they are taking to address them.


Lord Henley said: “The exceptionally dry weather


is


snapshot of what we might expect from climate


change. Although a


there is no current need for drought measures, there has been understandable


concern which


underlines the importance of taking steps now to protect the water supply that could be under threat from a drier climate. I’m delighted that these reports show the positive action water companies are already taking to address the long-term risks of climate change.” Lord Henley was speaking during a visit to Rutland Water reservoir where he saw work done by Anglian Water to improve the resilience of its water supply.


Yorkshire flood trial gets £235,000 funding boost


A trial into new flood management techniques, which use nature to control flood water, is to receive further funding from Defra. The Pickering project in North Yorkshire will receive £235,000 to continue innovative flood protection work.


The project makes use of the natural environment surrounding the town to store, divert and slow the flow of excess water rather than relying on traditional defences. The approach includes planting more trees, restoring wetlands, building natural dams in streams and reducing water runoff from fields.


These techniques ultimately


aim to help reduce the amount of flood water reaching the town during periods of heavy rainfall. The new money will help pay for the coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the next stage of the project, which will include the creation of floodplain woodlands, the building of more natural dams and earth flood banks, as well as vital improvements, maintenance and monitoring work.


Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman announced the funding during a visit to Pickering on 19 May.


Legionella outbreak investigated


An investigation into the cause of an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Scotland is under way. Three people have died and six others been hospitalised by the disease, but the health authorities are not clear on the cause. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde public health protection unit says it is working with colleagues from NHS Lanarkshire, Health Protection Scotland,


the Health & Safety


Executive, environmental health officers and other partner agencies to investigate all possible sources


for the disease. Meanwhile train companies are in the spotlight for failing to notify the public about possible exposure to Legionella. Passenger groups have called on rail companies to be open with customers after it emerged a third of toilet water tanks on trains running across the UK carry the legionella bacteria.


ScotRail identified two trains with contaminated tanks. The Health Protection Agency said trains were not thought to be the source of the lethal Scottish outbreak.


INDUSTRY VIEW


Steve Ruddell


Division manager – Discrete Automation & Motion


Make pumps smarter to cut costs


With Ofwat ever reluctant to allow water companies to increase prices to the consumer, suppliers are under pressure to justify why they need to raise prices. They also need to provide evidence of measures taken to keep increases to a minimum. Faced with large capital commitments under AMP5, how can water companies pass on some element of these new investments to the consumer yet still keep a lid on bills? The answer is to cut costs, a large part of which is of course, the costs of energy used in pumping water, combined with the associated maintenance.


ABB has developed a pump control software module for variable-speed drives. Known as Intelligent Pump Control (IPC), it contains all the common functions needed by water and wastewater utilities. By putting control functions in the drive, it cuts the need for a PLC, at the same time helping to save energy, reduce downtime and prevent pump jamming and pipeline blocking. Its sleep boost function runs the pumps to boost the pressure or water level just before they shutdown, extending the pump’s sleep time and so saving energy. The pump priority control function can balance the operating time of all the pumps in the system. It can be a great help in planning maintenance and can boost energy efficiency by operating pumps near their best efficiency point -, the drive can be programmed to operate higher capacity pumps during daytime and smaller units at night.


When it comes to actually cutting those maintenance bills, IPC offers an anti-jam routine. When this function is triggered, the pump is run at high speed and either reversed or stopped, in cleaning cycles that can be defined by the user. The routine clears out built up particles and avoids rusting in “sleeping” pumps. IPC can also turn a drive into a flow meter. The flow calculation routine can be used in a single-pump installation to make the drive into a flow meter.


This cuts the need for a flow meter in applications where the flow data is not required for invoicing. Flow measurement can be achieved without the need to use sensor, or if preferred, pressure transmitters can be used to supply the necessary measurement data. All these functions mean that ABB’s IPC software is the answer for water utilities needing to get more control of their pumping, cutting the costs of water treatment and helping them meet their commitments to their customer.


June 2011 Water & Wastewater Treatment 11


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52