Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | March 2015 | 7 Comment W henever I am making small talk about the water sector with the uninitiated (a surprisingly frequent occurrence at social gatherings, since I became editor of WWT) one of the industry developments people are most surprised to hear about is the effort to inject competition into the water sector. "What's the point?" they say. "Water's a natural monopoly. Anyway, I can't be bothered to change my energy sup- plier, so I'd be even less likely to switch water companies." By the time I have explained that the reform in question is not coming until 2017 and in any case will only affect business customers and not households, my conversation partner has usually lost interest and has disap- peared off in search of another drink. Water companies have carried out more consultation with their custom- ers during PR14 than ever before – they It's your choice had around 250,000 direct conversa- tions when drawing up their business plans – so it can only be hoped that the customers they spoke to were more engaged with water issues than the average person I bump into at parties. But the central objection voiced by my bored interlocutor is the same one that makes people apathetic at elections: it's hard to make people in interested in something if they feel they haven't really got a choice. Of course, while it will indeed be a long time before the average water and sewerage customer gets a choice of supplier, people make smaller choices about their water use all the time: how much of it they use and how efficiently; whether or not to get a water meter fitted; whether to drink bottled water or water from the tap; and what they dispose of down the drains along with their wastewater. The water industry has every interest in getting people engaged in these kind of choices, and one way of doing that is to show them the big picture. That's where some of the consultation exercises carried out in PR14 (which are discussed in my interview with Ofwat chief execu- tive Cathryn Ross on page 11 of this issue James brockett eDItor JamesBrockett@fav-house.com Twitter: @wwtmag of WWT) have been particularly effective. Some of the companies - Affinity Water being a good example - were able to be quite upfront with customers about the choices that they were making on customers' behalf, and were able to ask for input to those choices. Confronted with the choice between large scale infrastructure investment combined with greater abstraction, a lower level of service, or efforts to reduce customer water use, most people plumped for the third of those three options. In response, Affinity has now placed more emphasis on demand management initiatives during AMP6. With any luck, the results over the next five years will show that customers are taking responsibility and acknowledging that yes, they do have a choice about their water. With the election looming in May, it would be a surprise if water was to feature heavily in any party manifesto or hustings. But if the industry can continue to listen to its customers, and inform the choices we all make on a daily basis, then that relative lack of debate can hopefully be a sign of a grow- ing consensus about the direction the industry needs to go in, rather than the result of ill-informed apathy. Industry view sponsored by keith Hayward, National sales and marketing manager Hydro International's european Wastewater Division When it comes to grit, do you know what you are missing? That's the question currently being posed to operators about the scourge of the treatment plant that's simply accepted as a necessary evil. This column returns to the issue of innovation regularly – usually to highlight the barriers to progress - so it's exciting to be able to report on a technology that I believe could make real strides in operating efficiency and energy savings for our industry. Once grit gets past the inlet works, it starts costing money. The Grit – are you seeing the full story? heavy cost in energy, materials, time and money caused by grit is widely acknowledged by owners and operators. Yet poor grit removal is o en accepted as a necessary evil – and frustration with grit is accepted as a fact of operating life. But grit is the silent enemy of the wastewater treatment plant and should be a prime target for Totex operating cost reductions. Downstream of ineffective removal systems, grit: • builds-up in channels, pipes, primary tanks and digesters • wears out pumps, valves and other mechanical parts • blinds filters and membranes • clogs aeration basins and blowers • disrupts biological processes. All this damage has a significant impact on operating cost and efficiency. On average, it could cost £100,000 to drain down and clean a single primary tank every 5 – 7 years, for example. So, why are we not doing more to remove it? The answer is because grit does not behave as we tend to assume. conventional design for grit removal equipment at the inlet works is focused on misleading assumptions. as a result our engineers suspect conventional grit removal systems could o en be removing as little as 20 – 30% of grit at 200 microns and larger. hydro is engaging with the Water Environment Federation in the USa and the WIMES committee in the UK to review current standards. We are also currently conducting a comprehensive sampling programme with water companies in the UK. a new skid-mounted pilot unit is now available to be delivered and installed at WTP sites of any water company free of charge. Operators and asset managers can explore first hand just how much grit can be removed at their site and calculate the potential savings by reducing the impact of downstream processes. Want to get down to the nitty gritty? Email khayward@hydro-int.com.

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