How to Enhance the Efficiency of Your Water Treatment Facility in 5 Easy Steps

Are you looking for ways to increase the operational efficiency of your water treatment plant? As a plant manager, you need to find ways to improve your process of treating water to ensure the safety of your customers and ensure efficient water use amidst the global water crisis. One way to do it is by adopting new technologies, like the Data historian system.

A Data historian program records electronic operational data of the various equipment and devices in your facility. These data may include flow rates, pressure levels, temperature levels, and production outputs. Also measured and recorded is the performance of your discrete control devices, such as pumps, valves, and filtration systems.

Image Source: Pixabay

Practical Ways to Improve the Efficiency of Your Water Treatment Plant

Maintaining the optimum efficiency of your facility has several benefits to your bottom line. If you have obsolete water management practices and inefficient equipment, your operating costs will increase significantly, and your service will deteriorate. Here are some useful strategies to increase the efficiency of your facility:

Practice self-evaluation and benchmarking

By conducting a self-assessment of your operations, you can pinpoint flaws and inefficiencies in your system. It will also allow you to create strategies and solutions to eliminate systemic problems in your plant. As a start, you can use the Water Resource Foundation (WRF) self-assessment process, which is a component of the Performance Benchmarking for Effectively Managed Water Utilities report.

In benchmarking, you can establish your performance goals and advance strategies to achieve them. It will allow you to study the historical trends of your entire system for better planning.

Conduct pump performance audit

Analyze the performance of your pumps to make sure they are performing efficiently. In your evaluation, see to it that your pumps are not oversized to avoid water waste and high energy consumption.

If possible, install variable frequency drive (VFD) pumps rather than constant-speed pumps to bolster your efficiency. VFD pumps perform better in variable flow operation, which is common in water treatment facilities. By using VFD pumps, you will also avoid early pump deterioration due to on-off cycling.

Assess your technology

Evaluate your plant technologies to improve your efficiency.  You may consider replacing your outdated equipment and devices with new and highly-efficient products and solutions to boost your productivity. For example, you can install a new filter technology with less backwash water usage to save water.

Adopt smart technologies

To minimize non-revenue water wastage, installing intelligent metering technologies to keep track of your distribution network is a good idea. Many companies use technologies, such as Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Automated Meter Reading (AMR) systems to monitor and benchmark their performance. With these technologies in place, you can immediately identify and respond to issues like water leakage.

Perform data analysis

To measure and monitor your efficiency parameters, you should install a Data historian system. With accurate performance data, you can assess your facility’s performance and make the necessary adjustments to enhance your plant’s efficiency. Among the essential data to be analyzed are distribution network leakage, backwash water rates, pump performance, and sludge thickening rates.

The efficient use of water will help guarantee sufficient supply amidst the global water crisis. By ensuring the high efficiency of your water treatment facility, you can limit water wastage, improve customer service, and boost your profitability.