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Case

Non-revenue water

Water management

Water supply

Waterworks cuts energy by a third with real-time pressure adjustments in Talca, Chile

17. November 2015

Solution provider

Grundfos

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In the Chilean city of Talca, the Essbio-Nuevosur waterworks company has improved one neighbourhood’s water supply and cut energy consumption by 32 percent. The gains have come through the implementation of a Grundfos Demand-Driven Distribution (DDD) system, which the company is now considering employing in 51 plants that provide water to a million households.

More than 300,000 people live in Talca and the surrounding area, 250 kilometres south of the capital, Santiago, in an agricultural and winemaking region. The suburban neighbourhood of Tejas Verdes is the site of Essbio-Nuevosur’s pilot project for 10,000 customers, aimed at improving water service during peak hours and saving energy.

Tejas Verdes, situated five kilometres from the commercial centre, is one of the more affluent areas around. However, until about five years ago there were only a few large, expensive houses there. Barely 300 buildings were connected to the water supply network, which provided service to about 1,000 people.

Since then, new divisions of the land have led to the sale of many properties have been sold and the appearance of gated communities. In the wake of this real estate explosion, the neighbourhood now has 2,300 connections and around 10,000 residents, and the number of flats is growing 3 percent a year.

Sustainable economy
In view of the high cost of energy in Chile, the Essbio-Nuevosur waterworks set itself an ambitious target: reducing electricity consumption and cutting in half the percentage of non-revenue water (water supplied but lost before it reaches the customer) to 20 percent by 2020.

Before the Tejas Verdes pilot project was launched in March 2013, Essbio-Nuevosur waterworks used a time-based system to adjust the water pressure at different times of the day, depending on demand levels.
“We were looking for a solution when Grundfos offered us the DDD system,” says Germán Wolf, Essbio-Nuevosur’s assistant manager of process management. Grundfos headquarters personnel collected data, performed the necessary calculations and installed the system. “Our people helped out with their knowledge of the network, but the job was done by Grundfos,” he says.

The results
Essbio sends drinking water to more than a million households (in the region of Maule the company is called Essbio-Nuevosur). Four-fifths of the water is distributed by gravity, thanks to freshwater tanks located at high altitudes, while the rest comes from pressurized plants.
Tejas Verdes was selected for the pilot project because it has a wide variety of areas and a small number of inhabitants. It is also the home of a governor, many high-ranking civil servants and even Essbio’s regional manager.

Advantages of the DDD system in Chile
. Reduction in energy consumption (32 percent) in 18 months
. Decrease in non-revenue water (1.3 percent in six months)
. Stable pressure across the network
. No breaks in the pipeline, lower maintenance costs
. Immediate response to unexpected events, such as sudden peaks in demand

“That drives us to evaluate larger agreements with Grundfos,” Wolf says. Essbio is now considering employing the DDD system in 51 other pressurization plants.

About the Grundfos DDD system
To provide water to Tejas Verdes, Grundfos has installed four CRE90 vertical multistage centrifugal pumps that work in parallel, thanks to a CU352 controller. Only three of the pumps pressurize water, at a flow rate of 270 cubic metres per hour. The fourth remains as a backup. A flow meter is located at the exit. Sensors measure water pressure in real time at two critical points in the Tejas Verdes neighbourhood, sending the information wirelessly back to the CU352 control unit.

Photo: Jose Parra is in charge of operations at the Tejas Verdes waterworks in Talca, Chile. He says the new Demand-Driven Distribution system has eliminated breakdowns due to an overall reduced pressure on the grid.