Inverters in Water and Wastewater Archives - Inverter Drive Systems Ltd

Enhancing Operational Efficiency of Inlet Screws

Anglian Water was facing challenges with their inlet screws, which consumed between 4,000 and 5,500 kWh per day due to reliability issues. These screws were manually operated to mitigate these issues, leading to higher energy consumption. Each screw operated continuously, using soft starters for 24 hours a day. Project Initiation Anglian Water approached IDS to explore the benefits of altering the control strategy for these inlet screws. The goals were to reduce startup current and…

An Archimedean Screw Saves 8.2% Energy

Severn Trent Water are saving 14 tonnes of CO2 per annum by applying an inverter to an Archimedean Screw. Blaise Ford from IDS worked with Bill Edwards and Lee Tuckwell from Severn Trent Water, to apply inverter technology to an Archimedean Screw. At the Severn Trent Water Netheridge site there are three Archimedes screws, Duty/Assist/Stand-by, 110kW, star delta starting with two 20 year old motors and a recently installed IE3 motor on screw Pump No1….

Is Pumping Dirty Costing You Money?

In this article, George Dodwell, ABB Water Framework Manager – South highlights how pumping dirty can be costing you money: Did you know? Your pump isn’t running at its peak efficiency unless it’s clean! It is becoming more and more common within the water industry today to run pumps on variable speed drives for efficiency reasons, ABB variable speed drives can also help to keep your pump clean. Here is a very good example of…

Intelligent Pump Control

ABB’s ACQ580 inverters are ideal for the water industry and pumping in general. The inverter’s range from 0.75kW to 500kW in both 6 pulse and Ultra Low Harmonic variants. What I find most interesting about the ACQ580 is the IPC or Intelligent Pump Control software for controlling pumps in parallel. All you need to do is connect the embedded fieldbus and enter some basic pump control details, it’s simple. The pumps can then be set…

Weedscreen Cleaner Inverter Control Upgrade

Weedscreen cleaners are essential for rural pumping stations pumping water out of dykes. Without them, the pumps would get choked with weeds and pumping performance would fall with the risk of local flooding. It is important that these weedscreen cleaners are kept in efficient operation. The alternative to a weed screen cleaner is an expensive manual intervention to rake out the weeds. These weedscreen cleaners are usually PLC controlled. It consists of a grab on…

Inverters for Wastewater

At IDS we are used to supporting Wastewater Companies with inverter technology. We offer: Fleet of 65 hire drives for breakdown cover 24/7 technical advice and breakdown support £400k inverter and spares stock for immediate delivery Servicing Advice on inverter control and selection of new products Inverters for Wastewater Applications Wastewater sites have a range of applications that benefit from inverter control. We will give an overview here. Archimedean Screws These are often found on…

Water water everywhere – Stop it with drives and metering

Dan Banks, water framework manager, ABB, writes: Imagine losing a quarter of your production in a year – not through some freak accident or the vagaries of the weather but as a regular occurrence. A quarter of what you produce every year just drains into the ground. Which industry could accept such losses? Or even survive them? Yet that is what the water industry does each and every year. It sees much of its product –…

Sewage works saves energy on filter bed application

ABB variable speed drives improve energy efficiency with payback of less than three years at a Severn Trent Water sewage treatment works. Severn Trent Water is saving 15,000 kWh per year after installing two ABB variable speed drives at its Edwinstowe filter bed sewage treatment works in Nottinghamshire. The sewage treatment works includes a stone filter bed that requires a minimum circulation flow. If the inflow to the stone filter bed drops below its 75…

Relieving Pressure with Digitalization

The rapid development of real-time sensing and monitoring technologies for improving early leakage and water quality anomaly detection are an effective way to address these challenges as ABB’s Clayton Mead describes: There is increasing pressure on water utilities to lower their total cost of ownership and high leakage rates. By combining smart monitoring technology with variable speed drives (VSDs) and motors, water utilities can anticipate pump system maintenance needs, thereby moving from reactive to real-time monitoring. Condition-based monitoring…

Inverters for Clean Water

At IDS we are used to supporting Water Companies with variable speed drive technology. We offer: Fleet of 65 hire drives for breakdown cover 24/7 technical advice and breakdown support £400k inverter and spares stock for immediate delivery Servicing Advice on inverter control and selection of new products Why ABB Inverters for Clean Water As you well know, any application driven by an electric motor can benefit from inverter control. ABB have created a water…