Carbon reduction strategies to rule out cheaper pumping options

London - Whole life costing and carbon reduction strategies are pushing pumping station designers to insist on the most efficient pumps and more effective operation and control regimes and away from a tendency to adopt the cheapest option, says Dave Sheppard, senior mechanical engineer at MWH  - a provider of water, wastewater, energy, natural resource, program management, consulting and construction services to industrial, municipal, utility and government clients in Europe.

Sheppard, who is based at the MWH office in Solihull, West Midlands, is outlining his views in keynote speeches at two conferences: ‘Improving Pump Performance’, takes place on 3 June, with the second ‘Water and Wastewater Pumping Stations’ taking place on 17-18 June.

“For too many years too much emphasis on minimising capital expenditure has forced those of us designing water and wastewater pumping stations to install, often against our better judgement, the cheapest pumps and control systems, rather than the best and most efficient,” said Sheppard, who has 20 years’ experience in the water industry and has specialised in the design, installation and commissioning of pumping stations.

“There has been an obsession with the ‘bottom line’, the initial capital cost of the pump rather than looking at whole life costing of the whole installation. The global warming debate means that the prevailing orthodoxy of carbon reduction through greater efficiency, and hence a reduced use of power, presents an opportunity to get the best pump for the job rather than the cheapest.”

The UK government is committed to a 30% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. This coupled with the ‘energy gap’ arising from the increasing cost of fossil fuels and the search for viable alternatives, presents real challenges to engineers. But it also means that when a more expensive but much more efficient pump, in terms of energy use and therefore carbon emissions, is suggested it will now be taken seriously rather than dismissed on purely capital cost grounds.

“Cheap pumps may be more expensive in the long-term if they are less efficient, and experience problems of reliability. If the drive towards lower energy consumption and carbon reduction means that as engineers we can get the best equipment installed rather than the cheapest, then so much the better”, concluded Sheppard.

The Improving Pump Performance conference, organised by The Pump Centre, part of ESR Technology, takes place at the Holiday Inn, Runcorn. The Fourth International Water and Wastewater Pumping Stations Conference, organised by the BHR Group, takes place at Cranfield Management Development Centre.

MWH is a private, employee-owned firm with around 7,000 employees worldwide. The company provides water, wastewater, energy, natural resource, program management, consulting and construction services to industrial, municipal, utility and government clients in Europe, the Americas, Middle East, India, Asia and the Pacific Rim.