About 60km away from Bucharest, Romania lies Ploesti, a medium-sized city with big goals for water conservation.
A few years ago, Ploesti officials realised that they were losing 30% of water coming from the Ploesti Nord Gageni water supply zone, one of four water supply zones for the city. That totalled 1.5m m3 of water lost per year.
Clearly, a conservation system needed to be put in place to save water – and money.
Improving the improvements
The Ploesti Nord Gageni zone supplies water to 60,000 consumers and pumps 100,000 m3 per week. While 30% is a lot of water to lose, the situation was even worse a decade ago. Ploesti Nord Gageni had already reduced water losses from 50% to 30% over the last 10 years by installing new pumps, replacing pipes and dropping pressure at night. But the system was still not as efficient as it could have been.
One of the ways Ploesti Nord Gageni initially reduced loss was by using proportional pressure to control the water supply. Proportional pressure creates a variable flow, which allows for an adjustable flow rate based on the time of day or other environmental factors.
In theory, dropping water pressure at night can lead to water savings because consumption is lower when most are asleep. But a six-month study of Ploesti Nord Gageni showed that simply reducing nighttime pressure did not provide a significant savings in energy consumption. Losses were still high, so the owners of the Ploesti Nord Gageni pumping station researched more options for water conservation.
Officials then asked Danish pump manufacturer Grundfos to design a solution for a new pressure management system for their water supply.
The result was the Grundfos Demand Driven Distribution proportional pressure management solution, which allows pumps to run flexibly according to consumer demand.
Adjusting to demand
The Demand Driven Distribution system helps reduce costs and limit water loss in a water distribution system by effective pressure control. This is done by compensating for surplus pressure in the pipe system and by reducing water hammer. Water hammer is a pressure surge that happens when a liquid suddenly stops or changes direction – like when you turn off the faucet. This can lead to large leaks and lost energy in water supply systems.
The solution had three advantages: energy consumption savings, reduced leak losses, and reduced repair and maintenance costs. Combined, these benefits not only save water, but also prolong the lifetime of the system. Overall, the Grundfos Demand Driven Distribution solution reduced water loss by almost 7%t at Ploesti Nord Gageni.
A self-learning system
The system in place at Ploesti Nord Gageni is constantly being optimised. That’s because it is “self-learning”; it’s constantly adjusting to demand and creating pressure based on those calculations. A series of sensors in the pipe network also help to adjust system pressure based on needs. For Alina Mihalache, operations director, Apa Nova Ploesti, Veolia Apa, the results were surprising.
“Following our efforts over the years to reduce leakage and energy consumption, we didn’t really expect we could achieve further substantial savings,” she says. “We were therefore surprised and delighted by the results achieved with the Grundfos Demand Driven Distribution solution.”
Read more about Ploesti Nord Gageni’s Demand Driven Distribution solution here.
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Content on this page is paid for and provided by Grundfos, sponsor of the water hub
