Major upgrade for water station
A MAJOR Scottish wastewater facility in Glasgow has undergone a digital transformation 120 years after it was built.
Partick Pumping Station, which serves 170,000 people, is being updated with state- of- theart ‘ smart hardware’ to boost its operability, efficiency and reliability.
It will also reduce energy consumption and help the company reach its Net Zero targets while protecting the environment, including rivers Kelvin and Clyde.
The station is one of more than 30 being upgraded by Scottish Water as they are connected to a cloud- based digital app that provides alerts and data- driven insights.
The new replaces the steam- driven system 1904 station’s pumps, which were later substituted with electrical pumps during the 1960s.
The water utility company completed a £ 2.3million upgrade of the pumping station in 2012. Two main sewers go to the facility and it lifts flows from those to a gravity sewer which takes wastewater to Dalmuir Waste Water Treatment Works, in Clydebank.
Nathan Wield, wastewater operations manager at Scottish Water, said: “We have installed this smart hardware at Partick Pumping Station to be able to view and manage pumping performance better, which is a long way from the old steam driven pumps that were originally installed in the station at the start of the 20th century.
“It’s 120 years old this year and this latest investment will be hugely important because it’ll enable us to monitor and better understand how one of our largest, critical assets is performing.
“Being able to see pump performance, energy usage, weather information and well levels gives us confidence in managing our assets, and means we’re able to respond to emerging risks more quickly.
“Being able to do this 24/ 7 and remotely, by connecting this data to the cloud, means we have full visibility of the pumps performance data, which enables us to make better investment decisions and spend customers’ money more cost- effectively.”
He said using the new technology will allow staff to react to alerts on pump performance and mitigate the risk of failures, which will reduce the risk of a pollution spill.
The company’s investment to improve its asset management and desire to reach Net Zero targets by 2040 has led to a £ 2m year- long initiative.
This process is aimed at connecting the 32 largest waste water pumping stations to the Xylem Avensor cloud portal, promoting realtime visibility of on- site actions 24/ 7.