For the transport of the water to the customer, much energy is used. Almost three-quarters of all energy needed by a waterworks goes into the transport of water from the source to the purification plant and from the purification plant to the customer. If more water flows through a pipe this will become more and more difficult as the friction along the pipe wall will rapidly increase. Twice as much water will take four times as much effort. Three times as much even nine times more.
Larger pipes
Opting for somewhat larger pipes for the transport of the untreated water to the treatment plant can mean considerable savings. Just about as much as the solar energy power station can produce per year. This requires a sound weighing up of the cost of the larger pipes against the lower costs and profit for the environment by lower energy consumption.
Changeable customer
We also realise that we do not use water uniformly spread over the day. Sometimes there is a difference of even a factor 20 or more between the middle of the night and getting up in the morning. In order to bring sufficient water to the customer, the pipes must be large enough. Large pipes are expensive and give little friction and therefore use little energy, but then the water is a very long time en route, sometimes even days. Small pipes are cheap but are expensive for pumping. When constructing a piping system and a treatment plant, extensive calculations are made to achieve optimal benefit. It is important in this respect not only to look at which pipe and how much pump pressure is needed to get the water to the customer, but also how to get the water up to this pressure. Not easy when you have a changeable customer who constantly reacts differently.
Pumps with variable stroke
Prognoses of the water consumption are used for good attunement of production and demand. By combining this with the installation of pumps with variable stroke, considerable savings in energy can be made. The behaviour of a large group of people is predictable. So, if the demand for water increases, the pumps can pump faster, roughly 10% -20% saving is possible.
