Guest Bio
Joe Halliday is vice president of North America water and wastewater sales at Danfoss Drives.
Episode Summary
Host Vic Marinich is joined by Joe Halliday, vice president of North America water and wastewater sales at Danfoss Drives, to discuss current challenges in water and wastewater pumping and the technologies that municipalities are using to address these challenges.
Main Points
- With increased water demand, water treatment plants and pumping stations need to do more with fewer maintenance employees and less money while lowering their energy usage. (1:50)
- Water scarcity is looming. There is increased demand but supply is not unlimited. The industry is exploring ways to recycle and reuse water, such as using sanitizing treated wastewater for outdoor watering. (4:20)
- Using sea water to make fresh water, or reverse osmosis, is also growing in popularity. (9:00)
- Federal, state and local governments are requiring water treatment plants to lower their energy usage. Adoption of energy-saving pumping technologies, such as variable frequency drives, is increasing. Decreased energy use results in decreased carbon emissions, which are also being mandated at the federal, state and local levels. (10:30)
- In wastewater treatment, the blower system’s aeration is a large consumer of energy. Manufacturers have developed high speed turbo blowers, which use less energy and are helping to lower costs. (15:00)
- Main breaks and leaks are very costly in terms of water and energy. Variable frequency drives can reduce pressure in the system, decreasing the size of leaks. (16:10)
- Pump clogs are also costly. Deragging, or pump cleaning, can run the pump in reverse to clear clogs. Customers using the deragging feature offered on Danfoss drives have gone from 1 to 2 outages a week to less than 1 or 2 outages a month, a huge cost savings. (17:50)
- Condition-based monitoring can turn drives into a sensor. They alert operators to abnormalities in pump motor vibration or winding conditions so that problems can be addressed before a catastrophic failure occurs. This has been very attractive to a lot of customers. (20:50)
Links
For information and tools on sustainable practices for water utilities, visit https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-water-infrastructure/energy-efficiency-water-utilities
Check out our latest issue of Solutions to see how three water utilities used Danfoss drives to save energy, water and operating costs. https://online.flippingbook.com/link/367820/
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For more information and additional episodes of the EnVisioneering Exchange podcast, visit https://www.danfoss.com/en-us/about-danfoss/insights-for-tomorrow/envisioneering-exchange/
