A successful pilot project for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) has proved the superior speed, cost reduction and accuracy of thermodynamic pump testing.
Funded by non-for-profit collective, Waterstart, MWD used Riventa’s portable thermodynamic system to test a 7.5MW pump at one of its crucial pumping stations on the Southern California aqueduct that together with another eight pumps, provides 1.5 billion gallons of drinking water (daily) to the 19 million people of southern Los Angeles.
David Sadamoto, Senior Engineer at MWD said: “When Waterstart first brought Riventa’s technology to our attention, we had quite a job convincing ourselves, because the claims being made sounded so very superior to the conventional approach, which relies on traditional flow measurement that is subject to significant uncertainties.
“However, we soon saw the detail of the math in the continuous data, which gave us a much clearer picture than ever before of exactly how this pump is performing, which is vital for reliability and uses just a fraction of the manpower required to carry out a robust conventional test.”
Located two miles west of the Intake Plant, the pumping station where the Riventa monitoring took place lifts water from the Gene Wash Reservoir 303 feet to the Copper Basin Reservoir, at an elevation of 1,037 feet.
The pathway that led to MWD trialling this thermodynamic testing began when Riventa attended a TAG (Technology Acceptance Group) customer forum arranged by Isle Utilities, where Waterstart saw the potential of this innovative means of maximizing asset data.
Major thermodynamic pump test breakthrough in California
