Power Quality for Water & Utilities
The pumps and blowers that move and treat your water waste electricity before it reaches them, and HarmoniQ stops that waste at its source, with the works still running.
Pumps, Blowers and the Hidden Energy Drain
Your pumping stations and treatment works run pumps, aeration blowers and their drives around the clock. Between them they make the current on site distorted, reactive and unbalanced, and part of every kilowatt-hour you pay for never does useful work. It becomes heat, in your cables, your transformers and your motor windings.
Drives save energy at the motor. The distorted current they draw wastes energy elsewhere, and it doesn't appear on your bill as a line of its own. It shows up as higher consumption, power-factor penalties, capacity charges, and motors that fail sooner than they should.
10–20%
Typical saving in kilowatt-hours on the low-voltage loads at a treatment works, by preventing the losses before they occur
Where the Waste Starts in a Works
Three problems account for most of it, and each has a unit that sits where the problem starts.
Harmonic distortion
Pump and blower drives
Variable-speed drives on pumps and aeration blowers draw current in sharp pulses. The 5th and 7th harmonics ripple through the works, heating cables, transformers and motor windings, and upsetting PLCs and instruments.
FittedHarmoniQ Delta, at the drives
Reactive power
Large motors and process loads
Pumps, blowers and mixers draw current that does no work but still has to be supplied, and large motor starts make it swing. It inflates the apparent power you are billed for and the capacity you have to reserve.
FittedHarmoniQ Alpha at each machine, HarmoniQ Sigma at the incomer
Phase imbalance
Single-phase and small loads
Lighting, heating, instrument supplies and small power are single-phase and leave the three phases uneven. The difference flows down the neutral and sets up counter-rotating fields in your motors: heat without torque.
FittedHarmoniQ Alpha, at the load
Same Flow. Less Power.
With the waste prevented, the same pumps and blowers move the same water on fewer kilowatt-hours. With power-factor penalties gone and capacity charges lower too, that can take up to 25% off your total electricity bill where all three apply.
- Energy savings · kWh
- 10–20%
- Power factor
- 0.98+
- Equipment life · Arrhenius
- 2–4×
- Operational disruption
- 0
What We Hear, and the Reality
We hear
“We use VFDs for efficiency. They're already saving us energy.”
The reality
A VFD does save energy at the motor, by matching speed to demand. Its input side also draws current in sharp pulses, and that distorted current becomes heat in cables, transformers and windings. HarmoniQ stops it at the drives and leaves the VFD's saving untouched.
We hear
“Our SCADA trips are an IT problem, not a power problem.”
The reality
Trips and faults that follow pump starts or blower cycling are worth measuring before they are put down to IT. Harmonic distortion is a known source of control and communication faults. Our engineers measure your network before anything is fitted, so you can see whether it is there.
We hear
“We're a regulated utility. We can't justify the capital spend.”
The reality
A regulated case has to rest on evidence. The on/off test proves the saving in kilowatt-hours at your own meter, before any annual figure is quoted. Our engineers will show you what that means for your sites.
Three Steps. Zero Disruption.
01 · Assess
Measure the network
Our engineers measure your network, from the incomer to the pump and blower drives, and show you where energy is being wasted, before anything is fitted.
02 · Install
Fit alongside your circuits
Each unit goes in where its problem starts, connected in parallel, with the works running. In a hazardous area, the units stay outside the classified zone, in the electrical or MCC room, with only CTs and cabling in the field.
03 · Prove
Test it on and off
The on/off test proves the saving in kilowatt-hours at your own meter, before any annual figure is quoted.
See What HarmoniQ Can Do for Your Works
Our engineers will measure your site and show you exactly where energy is being wasted, and how much of it HarmoniQ can prevent.