Show continues today in Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 28, 2000 - Savvy management of the details can save water and wastewater utilities big bucks on energy costs, according to speakers at the Motor Control Workshop on Sunday.
Management skills including good planning, preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance and analysis of the entire system should help utilities get a handle on energy costs, the speakers said.
The workshop included presentations on maintaining and repairing motors, new motor and drive regulations and guidelines, and saving energy in liquid pumping applications.
Motor Control Workshop
The three-part workshop was the opening event of the Energy Efficiency Forum, a conference hosted by WaterWorld Magazine and PennWell Corporation.
The forum reviews the latest research on conserving energy from a water or wastewater utility's perspective. In an age of increasing competition and privatization, energy conservation is an important way for utilities to cut costs and be more competitive in the water market.
With technical sessions on electric industry deregulation, project finance, energy efficiency in Pennsylvania and optimization for energy conservation, the three-day conference is narrowly targeted to help water and wastewater professionals choose and maintain equipment for maximum energy efficiency.
The conference, now in its third year, also includes exhibits on the latest products for more energy-efficient water and wastewater systems.
Preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, diligent record-keeping and adherence to goals are the keystones of energy savings, said Thomas Bishop, Vice President in Engineering of Longo Electric. Bishop, whose firm sells and repairs motors, pumps, switch gear work and motor controls, gave the first motor workshop presentation.
Bishop said in addition to performing proper maintenance and repairs on equipment, industry professionals can also have upgrades done to achieve better energy efficiency. For instance, his company has replaced regular windings in a motor with copper windings.
In the second workshop presentation, Thomas Eisenhardt, a drives specialist for Baldor, said the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT) has helped in the energy efficiency effort by forcing manufacturers to build the way they should be built.
"When you talk of efficiencies, you're talking about pre-EPACT and post-EPACT." However, there is room for improvement - there are too many loopholes, he said.
When looking at buying new motors, always look at how long it will take to pay for the motor with the money saved by lower energy use. In some cases, the purchase may not be justified for the application, he said.
Switching to a smaller pump can be the single-most energy efficient act a utility can perform, according to speaker Gunnar Hovstadius, Director of Engineering for ITT Flygt Corporation.
Hovstadius offered several ways to analyze the water or wastewater pumping system using graphing tools which compare total head with design flow. Static head is what reduces the potential for energy efficiency, he said.
Often in the process of improving energy efficiency, the utility can unwittingly reduce maintenance needs and replace equipment less often. In one business case reported in DOE's Independent Performance Validation Report, a 4.5-year payback became a 1.5-year payback when the utility factored in the reduced maintenance and increased equipment life.
Utilities can look at energy use in a pumping station like they would look at a car for sale. Whereas a consumer would check the car's mileage per gallon, with pumps utilities should look at watt hours per gallon pumped.
All of the speakers touched on the tricky aspects of choosing and installing a variable frequency drive (VFD) with other types of power controls, such as capacitors. The VFD can create spikes which may damage other microprocessor-based units.
The Department of Energy helped to host the workshop. For more information about the DOE, visit www.oit.doe.gov/.
Plant tour
Later in the day, about forty industry professionals took a tour of the Southwest Water Pollution Control Plant, also in Philadelphia.
Perched on the edge of the Delaware River, the facility handles about 10 % of the overall flow for the city. The Southwest plant uses a range of energy-conscious practices, including using power generated from digester methane gas, buying energy-efficient pumps and motors, using variable frequency drives and being judicious with the lighting in the buildings. The uninterruptable power supply runs on diesel fuel and is a large part of the reason the plant pays such a low rate for energy, according to Debra McCarty, manager of wastewater treatment plants in Philadelphia.
Also to save on energy, the facility operators leave some lawns uncut and grow wildflowers in some areas. This has the added benefit of discouraging the Canadian geese from overstaying their visit on their migratory path.
Because of some of these practices, the utility has an agreement with the electric company PECO to buy electricity at 3.5-4 cents per kilowatt hour, said Debra McCarty, manager for wastewater plants in Philadelphia.
For the three Philadelphia plants which have a $10 to $11 million overall budget, the electricity budget is roughly $2 million dollars alone, she said. The electrical feed to the plant is 13,300 kv.
The facility was built in the 1950s and has undergone extensive upgrades over the years. The plant treats an average of 190 million gallons of wastewater per day, according to literature from the plant. It uses a three-stage activated sludge process that incorporates sedimentation, aeration and final sedimentation.
The facility recently got out of a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency by implementing a number of aggressive measures, improving the preventive maintenance scheduling and labor problems.
The methane gas, 60-65% methane, is produced during digestion and used to power the plant's heating and cooling systems. A new cogeneration facility handles the excess. It is operated under private contract. The cogeneration facility is expected to produce nearly $21 million in savings over the 20-year life of the contract.
Aeration is achieved using cryogenically generated oxygen from the facility's oxygen plant. The plant produces about 70 tons per day of oxygen to aerate its high-strength wastewater.
When it was forced to move its railroad track which delivered liquid chlorine, officials at the plant decided to make the switch to sodium hypochlorite. The new system is very easy to operate, McCarty said. The facility has plans to add sodium bisulfite to remove the chlorine.
After the sludge is anaerobically digested and concentrated to 4-5% solids, it is pumped to the Philadelphia Sludge Recycling Center where it is composted and distributed. The recycling center produces 60,000 tons of Earthmate, (composted biosolids) per year.
The plant now is meeting and exceeding all its permit limits, with new plans for more improvements in the future.
Today
The energy-efficient practices of a sewerage district in Wisconsin have earned it the Innovative Energy Management Award, to be given during the opening session today.
Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, under the contract operation of United Water, will receive the Innovative Energy Management Award for saving nearly millions of dollars per year in energy costs, according to James Laughlin, EEF conference chairman.
Laughlin will present the trophy to Milwaukee (MMSD) during the opening session today. The project also will be featured in the September issue of WaterWorld Magazine. For more information about MMSD, visit the web site at www.mmsd.com/about/about.html.
Also during the opening session, Debra McCarty will present the Welcome to Philadelphia address.
The keynote will revisit American colonial times with a keynote address from Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, played by impersonator Ralph Archbold, will discuss the virtues of change. More than 200 years after his death, Franklin's words are heard (with Archbold's help) at conferences and events all over the country, including The Today Show and Good Morning America.
"The Future of Energy," a discussion of the electric power, oil and gas industries, will follow the keynote. Four technical sessions are also in the schedule, covering electric industry deregulation, project finance, energy efficiency projects in Pennsylvania and optimization for energy conservation.
The Liberty Bell Reception, sponsored by Powerware Solutions ( http://www.powerwaresolutions.com/), will wrap up the day.
Tuesday, the final day of the conference, is filled with technical sessions from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Attendees will discuss such topics as pumping system efficiency, energy management, motors, drives and pumps, aeration upgrades, on-site generation and energy optimization.
Things to do in Philadelphia: For a general calendar of events happening in August, visit libertynet.org's site.
A complete travel and tourism guide to Philadelphia is available at http://www.123philadelphia.com.
Valley Forge National Historical Park ( http://www.valleyforge.org/).
The Philadelphia Folk Festival Aug. 25-27 ( http://www.folkfest.org/).
Third Annual Garden Railway Display in the Morris Arboretum, Fairmount Park ( http://www.greenspacefun.org/).
The Rodin Museum ( http://www.123philadelphia.com/rodinmuseum.htm).
More information: Complete details about the upcoming conference are at http://ww.pennnet.com/home/events.cfm. For more information, call conference coordinator Marvetta McNeel at +1-918-831-9500 or e-mail: [email protected].
