Operators of a municipal wastewater pumping station in the rural town of Lomma on Sweden’s southwestern coast agreed to install and trial a new wastewater pumping system in an effort to solve clogging issues. In addition to delivering clog-free pumping, Xylem’s Flygt Concertor, a pumping system with integrated intelligence, significantly reduced energy consumption at the wastewater pumping station. The operators were so impressed that they decided to purchase and permanently install the new system at the facility.
The Solution
Lomma Municipality is located in the Skåne region of southern Sweden. It serves more than 23,000 inhabitants in three main districts, including several villages and neighboring communities. The municipality’s Civil Administration Unit is working intensively to expand and improve its services as its population has steadily grown over the last five years.
It is in this context that operators of the Borgeby treatment plant agreed to trial Concertor, Flygt’s new wastewater pumping system, in one of their pump stations. The main challenges were to improve plant efficiency and reduce instances of pump clogging, which typically required maintenance staff to intervene once a month.
The Results
In June 2015, Flygt Concertor was installed at Flädie Lundavägen pumping station, and the system’s performance was closely monitored over a period of six months. This showed that the newly installed system delivered a significant reduction in energy consumption. In addition to the energy savings, maintenance costs decreased by €1,300 annually.
“Since installing Flygt Concertor we have seen a significant drop in our energy bill,” said Anders Sjöstrand, manager at Borgeby treatment plant. “Furthermore, maintenance callouts have also been reduced to zero as the overall performance at the station has been greatly improved. We were so impressed with the system that we decided to replace our current system and install this new solution permanently at Flädie Lundavägen.”
Furthermore, the benefits of acquiring a system that is so flexible is that in addition to the immediate positive impact of the trouble-free pumping and energy savings, operators can, for example, plan a significant reduction in their pump stock, reducing the variety of pumps needed to cover all of their applications.
Lomma Municipality is aware of the inventory savings made possible with Flygt Concertor.
“By having Concertor with three outlet dimensions, we can drastically reduce our inventory, as we won’t need so many varieties of pumps and impellers,” Sjöstrand said. “We’re confident that this can deliver savings for us, and we are looking forward to seeing how it will work in the future.”
One of Concertor’s unique features is its flexibility. Not only does this new system adjust pump performance based on actual flow requirements, making selection easier and guaranteeing optimal performance under variable flow, but it also is scalable, which means that it is possible for operators to add new functionality without losing their initial investment. This makes it suitable for challenges in many different sectors, as it is able to improve the efficiency of stations with different characteristics.
