Increasing Energy Efficiency in Water Collection Systems by Submersible PMSM Well Pumps

Water collection based on groundwater abstraction has a high energy consumption that depends primarily on the operation and performance of submersible well pumps. The fact of the matter is that these machines still work with a global energy efficiency of less than 50%, and further investigations of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWater (Basel) Vol. 10; no. 10; p. 1310
Main Authors Beck, Marcus, Sperlich, Alexander, Blank, Ricardo, Meyer, Eckehard, Binz, Ralf, Ernst, Mathias
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published MDPI AG 01.10.2018
Subjects
Comparative analysis
Economic incentives
electrical submersible pumps
Energy conservation
Energy efficiency
Energy industry
Energy management systems
Energy use
Force and energy
Germany
Magnets, Permanent
optimizing working points
permanent magnet synchronous motor
variable-speed operation
water collection
Water, Underground
Germany
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Summary:Water collection based on groundwater abstraction has a high energy consumption that depends primarily on the operation and performance of submersible well pumps. The fact of the matter is that these machines still work with a global energy efficiency of less than 50%, and further investigations of the energy aspects in well pumps are needed. The present study introduces measures to increase the global efficiency of submersible well pumps linked to electrical energy savings. Common submersible pumps with asynchronous motors (ASMs) were compared with innovative permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) technology in real well fields in Berlin and Hamburg waterworks. This study confirms that PMSM pumps showed a 6.8%-points higher global efficiency compared to ASM pumps at optimal working points. The investigation of the impact of well field operation on local pump efficiency offers an additional increase in the global efficiency. In this context, the influence of variable speed control on the global efficiency and the energy consumption was analyzed. Global efficiencies of over 70%, and potential energy savings of up to 20%, were determined for the speed-controlled PMSM pump. This offers water suppliers new incentives to optimize their water collection systems for less energy consumption.
ISSN:2073-4441
2073-4441
DOI:10.3390/w10101310