Analysis of Energy Consumption and Energy Saving Opportunity at Solar Powered Water Treatment Plant: A Case Study of Sundarighat Water Treatment Plant

Abstract

This study primarily focused on the fundamentals associated with energy saving opportunity at drinking water supply system. In Nepal water supply system is designed based the immediate requirement without proper study with the limited available resources. Sundarighat water treatment Plant treats the water from Nakhu Khola and pumped to major part of Kathmandu valley for distribution through the pumping system available at WTP. Pumping system at WTP consume most of the energy compared to other electrical load at the treatment plant. The technical status and performance of the equipment, machineries and accessories of pumping system are largely unknown as the evaluation of the system was not performed yet. In this study, an analysis of the energy consumption by performing energy audit at WTP was done to find the status of electrical parameter for energy efficient operation of plant and identifies the opportunity to save energy and cost through pump size selection. A power quality analyzer and three phase clamp meter was used to analyze the patterns of electrical parameters. Hydraulic simulation software EPANET 2.2 was used for determination of pump size by analyzing the water transmission pipeline