Thanks to Xylem’s new Flygt Concertor® pumping system, selecting the right pump for a pump station just got a lot easier. A single Flygt Concertor® pump can be programmed to self-adjust or it can be adjusted to fit changing conditions – without changing the impeller diameter or resizing the motor. Chetan Mistry, strategy and marketing manager of Xylem Africa outlines the development.
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‘Aging infrastructure, global urbanisation, increasing energy costs and the need for sustainable solutions are making cost reduction an urgent priority for everyone,” begins Chetan Mistry of Xylem Africa. “By 2050, an estimated 70% of all the world’s population will be living in cities, which poses an urban wastewater challenge on a scale we’ve never seen before,” he suggests.
Xylem’s response to these challenges is not more products and complexity but intelligent, flexible and leaner solutions. “For decades, we’ve been dedicated to developing sophisticated wastewater pumping solutions that boost efficiency while dramatically reducing equipment footprints and costs of ownership. It’s a complex challenge that only the most innovative and integrated designs can solve,” Chetan says.
For more than 60 years, Xylem’s Flygt brand has continuously raised industry standards for compact, trouble-free pumping. Ever since introducing the world’s first submersible pumps, the focus has been on integrating technologies to reduce complexity and costs. The breakthroughs that have emerged along the way have been a huge benefit to wastewater pumping stations all over the world. “At the end of the day, peace of mind is the true measure of our success. And we remain as determined as ever to raise expectations for smarter, more reliable and user-friendly pumping systems,” Chetan tells MechChem Africa.
Xylem’s new Flygt Concertor wastewater pumping system with integrated intelligence takes these expectations to new levels of technology and thinking for 1-10 kW pump stations.
A fully integrated pumping system, Flygt Concertor’s system design works in harmony with the external pumping system to reduce total costs of ownership while delivering the highest quality and reliability. This new wastewater pumping system senses the operating conditions of its environment and adapts its performance in real time to provide feedback to station operators.
The name Concertor relates to the harmony between built-in software functions and state-of-the-art hardware, which brings remarkable benefits. Concertor combines a fully integrated control system, IE4 motor efficiency, Xylem’s patented Adaptive N-hydraulics and intelligent pumping system functionalities. The control system automatically adapts to the changing pumping environment to deliver optimal performance at the lowest costs. The built-in intelligence also makes it easier to set up and operate, as well as allowing for a significantly smaller footprint,” notes Chetan.
Concertor’s benefits cover four main categories: efficient asset management; trouble-free pumping; energy savings; and reduced investment.
In terms of pump asset management, because of the wide range of pump curves that can be accommodated, the need to identify real pumping design requirements before sizing and choosing suitable pumps is removed. One self-adjusting pump can efficiently replace several differently sized pumps, reducing inventory by up to 80%.
This makes product selection much easier, with adjustable performance curves that can be fine-tuned remotely or on site, reducing backup inventory, making spare part handling easier and reducing delivery lead times.
For trouble-free pumping, built-in features such as clog-free operation reduce the need to call out vacuum cleaning trucks by up to 80%. “Cleaning out sludge, sand, grease and other debris from a sump tank can be an unpleasant and costly task. While standard pumps are designed to combat many of these issues, Concertor takes trouble-free pumping to an entirely new level,” says Chetan.
With built in sump, pipe and pump cleaning, as well as automatic clog detection and phase rotation correction, the new Flygt Concertor system’s self-cleaning hydraulics and self-monitoring functionality are ideally placed to protect key system components, using the VSD and its control electronics in a stable submerged environment.
From an energy perspective, the system delivers up to 70% energy savings compared to conventional wastewater pumps and controls. “Studies show that energy accounts for 34% of the total life cycle cost of a typical wastewater pumping system. Concertor is a true energy-saver, with the potential to cut municipal electricity bills by up to 70% compared to conventional wastewater pumping,” Chetan says.
Concertor reduces energy use in several ways. For example, Xylem’s patented self-optimising Energy Minimiser automatically ensures that all working pumps at any station are running at their most efficient duty points. The pump’s motor complies with IE4 efficiency standards, while Xylem Flygt’s adaptive N-hydraulics in high chrome Hard-Iron™ guarantee sustained efficiency on the hydraulics side.
Installation investment is reduced because the cabinets required for the system are up to 50% smaller, compared to direct online pump controllers. Concertor achieves this by including variable frequency drives (VFDs), integrated intelligence, control electronics and climate control equipment into the pump to give a single, pre-engineered and configured pumping system. This frees up space in both existing and new cabinets, allowing for full monitoring functionality without the larger cabinets that would traditionally be required.
Being fully integrated means that no additional climate control equipment is required; the system is factory configured and tested and, on installation, requires only a connection to small cabinet to give access to the simple installation wizard and the built in supervision and monitoring functions.
“Concertor is a breakthrough innovation based on Flygt DirigoTM technology. The new system is enabled by integrating a processor, software, sensors, power electronics, a synchronous electric motor and self-cleaning hydraulics into a submersible shell. This ‘intelligence’ gives the Xylem Flygt Concertor system the ability to automatically deliver optimal pumping performance while reducing total costs of ownership in the most arduous of wastewater environments,” Chetan concludes.