Production plants and other industrial sites tend to use water for a number of different processes. This usage is usually relatively high, probably around 30-50000m3 per year. Therefore, it is essential for businesses in this situation to have a viable strategy to continually reduce water use to keep costs down.
This post will outline a strategy I have recently developed in my job which has the benefit of supplying information on:
- Volumes of water used in real time,
- Where these volumes of water are going.
Most industrial premises will have one water feed from the mains water network which supplies to all activities on site. This is metered and you will be billed based on the meter readings from this point. After this, do you know how much water supplies each aspect of your operation? The step by step guide below provides you with a sure-fire way to save water. You will have to do the research yourself to see if the pay-back period is short enough for your business, as there will be initial capital expenditure.
1. Do you know where your sub-surface pipes are? If not, you should contract a company to scan for all underground water pipes. They will supply you with a CAD plan of your site with the pipe network plotted.
2. Check underground for leaks. The same company as mentioned in step 1 will probably do this for you as part of the contract. If not, try and get them to. They cannot quantify any leaks to you, but it is certainly worthwhile.
3. Check for above surface leaks. The first thing you should do is check all above ground pipes for leaks and have these repaired. Try to keep as detailed a record of them as possible, including costs. If you can, hold a jug under the leak for a set period of time and calculate a cost. This will all be useful in justifying the project and you can eventually quantify savings.
4. Make sure you’re being billed right. Again, the company from step 1 will probably do a billing audit for free for you, which could end up in you receiving a rebate from any time within the last six years. It’s definitely worth the effort.
5. Contact your supplier. Most suppliers will provide daily consumption data to you on request. There may be a charge for this service but it is small (around £100). Get as much data as you can from them. It will help you to calculate the possible savings to be made.
6. Research the benefits of using a Smart Metering system across your site. They are a set of flow meters which can transmit data to a server allowing you real time access to your water consumption. These are to be installed at strategic points across site to isolate each process or set of equipment.
7. Build a report suggesting the installation of Smart Metering. Your annual savings should be based on the below equation, where: Qmax(n) = a “savings limit”, q = total consumption on day n, and n = date (in number of days since first day of data).
This works on the assumption that it would take two days to fix a problem which causes a spike in usage. Therefore, what you should do is subtract this “savings limit” for each day from the consumption data and remove all negative values. Add together all positive values and this will give you a total saving of water. Multiply this by the cost of water, divide by the number of days in the sample and multiply by 365 and you will have your total annual saving in £ or $.
8. This saving should justify the initial expenditure on the system if the process highlighted in the flow diagram below is followed. In this diagram, v = the average difference in consumption from one day to the next and the other numbers are the same as the equation above.
Using the process above and the Smart Meter system, will ensure that your business continually reduces (where possible) water consumption until it converges on a level which is impossible to reduce any further.
I hope this helps! I'm currently in the process of getting this system installed for our site and if you have any feedback or have noticed any problems, or indeed have any questions, please get in touch.
Best wishes.
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