After reviewing the 15-year-old Wedeco UV disinfection systems across eight water treatment plants of Yorkshire Water, Xylem says it has implemented a preventative maintenance program and drastically reduced yearly maintenance callouts by more than 66%.
With some of the UK’s most prominent coastlines and busiest seaside towns under its remit, creating clean bathing water for its thousands of visitors is not something Yorkshire Water takes lightly.
Targeted disinfection is a crucial part of the wastewater treatment process, and Yorkshire Water has been operating Xylem’s Wedeco TAK 55 UV disinfection systems for over 15 years. The modularly designed UV system, says Xylem, “allows practically unlimited quantities of wastewater to be disinfected, 100% safely and energy-efficiently.”
The TAK 55 system is installed at eight UV Wastewater sites across the Yorkshire coastline. Some of the larger facilities include Scarborough with a 240 lamp system processing up to 580 litres per second, Whitby with a 96 lamp system processing up to 262 l/s and Bridlington which has a 120 lamp system processing up to 325 l/s.
As TAK 55 user of 15 years and as service provider committed to deliver high quality water, the Contractor Specialist at Yorkshire Water partnered with the Xylem team to undertake full analysis of the eight sites and subsequently developed a risk matrix.
This matrix listed all of the key equipment on each TAK 55 UV system and scored it based on probability versus likelihood it would fail. It also included a cost price for replacing each item with genuine spares as part of a mass upgrade.
Yorkshire Water was able to secure funding for refurbishment of the UV systems prioritised by the risk matrix and this upgrade was rolled out over a 24 month period. In addition Xylem embarked on a programme of routine servicing of all of the UV plants which involves two minor services and one major service per site, per year.
By implementing the preventative maintenance programme in addition to the risk-based refurbishment Yorkshire Water has seen a significant reduction of call outs of 70% and energy savings of around 25%.
“We were able to bring each site up to a good standard so that it would be easy to maintain and service. However, most importantly it resulted in less risk of failing and causing potential site compliance issues,” explains John Watson from Xylem’s Treatment TotalCare team. “Preventative maintenance strategies are vital to any process industry. For organisations like Yorkshire Water, downtime needs to be avoided at all costs so as not to affect the general public.”
Due to the success of this project, Yorkshire Water has now awarded Xylem with an extended service contract including two more wastewater sites located at Scarborough and Skipsea.
For more information on the TotalCare services and genuine spare parts, please visit www.xylem.com/uk.
