Danish firm Grundfos offers smart water solutions for rural Sri Lanka
COPENHAGEN – Like many things in Sri Lanka, from climate change to natural disasters (floods and drought), people wait until catastrophe strikes, then look at the government to provide relief and compensation.
The company's Denmark plant.
Even though the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 taught Sri Lankans the importance of having a preventive mindset towards natural disasters; “we” haven’t implemented any strategies that would indicate we learned those hard lessons.
Appropriate strategies need to be taken to address the problems of the rural communities living in 14,000 villages countrywide, but successive governments did not give priority to the critical issues faced by the rural sector.
In spite of the country receiving around 100 billion cubic metres of water annually, recurrent water shortages have affected thousands of people, mostly in the rural areas.
They face immense difficulties due to lack of water for drinking and other domestic purposes.
Villagers do not get a regular supply of water. Hence, they have to walk a few kilometres to collect water and even the water that is available is not pure.
There are economic, environmental, social and cultural constraints associated with the provision of safe water.
The demand for clean and safe drinking water continues to grow and this is a major challenge as countries need to maintain these valuable resources in the best way possible.
For instance, 45 million m3 per day, enough to serve 200 million people globally is being lost owing to the failure to implement proper water management practices.
Smart solutions coupled with high tech have now been evolved by world renowned companies including Danish pump giant Grundfos to get much smarter about managing water and in particular tackling leakages.
A group of Asian journalists was provided an opportunity to visit Denmark last week to get first-hand information on the new technologies that the country is implementing to address water problems and how it may be able to help other nations facing the same issues.
Making a presentation, Grundfos Asia Pacific Region, Regional Managing Director of the company Kim Jensen noted that his company will be focusing on the emerging middle-class, commercial and domestic building segments.
He said that the company is also intensifying its drive on energy efficient products, water utilities for flood control and water treatment applications.
Expanding operations
In the short term, it will be working towards expanding the Sri Lanka operations at the World Trade Centre and its presence in Bangladesh and Cambodia, he added.
The company has put forward a solution to the water shortage problem via a process called Demand Driven Distribution (DDD).
This system uses pressure control to deliver against demand this means that in high flow periods, friction loss in the mains is relatively high and any corresponding losses are therefore low.
However, when this demand decreases and the flow is maintained, this leads to additional water loss in these off-peak periods.
The benefits of using the DDD system helps to manage these changes in demand meaning a leakage reduction of approximately 20 per cent.
The Grundfos DDD system achieves this by automatically adapting the set point to match the actual flow, in order to meet the actual demand that exists within the system.
The special system controller addresses this issue in two ways, firstly by reducing surplus water pressure in pipes and secondly it also lowers the risk of water hammer, which is a primary cause of new pipe work weaknesses.
This multi-pump solution operates at proportional pressure and this ensures the flow is supplied precisely as needed and at the required pressure.
It is aimed at reducing costs and limit water losses in a 24×7 water distribution system by effective pressure control.
The Grundfos controller works with all pump types, offering substantial economic benefits from energy savings and reduced leakage losses.
These details were disclosed by company officials headed by Manager Multistage Products Erick Anderson during the visit of journalists to the factory for industry pumps located at its headquarters in Bjerringbro, Denmark.
He also explained on how they work with digitalisation in the factories and advanced manufacturing engineering to create the factory of the future.
As a solution to rural water supply problems, Grundfos offers solar submersible range of pumps, (SQFlex ) which have 10 different sizes which can be used at different locations ensuring excellent high, medium and low water flows at any conditions.
The company’s solar surface range of pumps, CRFlex offers the most sustainable, reliable and cost effective alternative to irregular water supply in remote locations or for any specific applications anywhere.
Customised solutions
These pumps provide customised solutions to tackle water problems where there is a challenge or lack of conventional water supply.
It has several other pumps for water supply and waste water industries. Some of the key service applications are Water Distribution, Water Intake, Water Treatment, Wastewater Transport, Wastewater Treatment, etc.
“With the introduction of information and communications technologies, many high-technology concepts have penetrated water sector, such as algorithm-based leak detection and cloud-based fixed leak detection, Mr. Jensen told the Business Times.
He disclosed that the Grundfos Lifelink (GLL) solution is an innovative water supply system for rural communities.
It is an intelligent water dispensing system that accepts “Water Card” like an ATM and converts raw water into potable for consumers.
The company will launch AQpure and AQtap through which consumers can pay for the water via a smart card which is topped up with water credits prior to water tapping.
It combines a pump driven by solar energy with an automatic water dispenser including an innovative payment system based on mobile payment, remote monitoring and a professional service contract.
The small user fee for water is transferred in a closed system to a service account, which covers for service and maintenance.
With the water revenue financing the on-going service and maintenance, this is a new and scalable model for long-term sustainable and self-financing water projects, he added.
The company offers sustainable water solutions through its product AQPure for developing countries like India and Africa developed under GLL arm.
AQPure uses ultra-filtration technology for treating surface water and has the capacity to treat 40,000 litres per day for community use, he revealed.
On Thursday June 22, the group of visiting journalists was taken to Copenhagen in a private jet owned by Grundfos as the final destination of their fact finding tour.
This Danish capital is connected with fables, Vikings and in recent decades, good design.
As Copenhagen city prepares for a century of extreme climate events, landscape architects, planners and inhabitants are finding creative solutions that provide not just flood security, but more urban amenity, officials said.
Hundreds of thousands of commuters were seen riding on bicycles, cars, buses and vans on their way across bridges that connect Copenhagen’s many islands. Majority of them are cyclists.
Cyclists, motorists and pedestrians speed over busy canals and race through the streets of the old city, while canal tour boats filled with tourists slowly orbit the centre.
Copenhagen’s Climate Adaptation Plan has identified water – in the form of rainfall and flooding – as key threats.
The plan places landscape architecture at the core of planned upgrades to existing areas and the development of new areas.
This was stated by the Executive Project Director of the City Jorgen Abildgaard when he addressed the visiting team of journalists at a meeting held at the Copenhagen Town Hall.
The city has intensified on flood prevention and developed drainage solutions that integrate with urban infrastructure (such as storm water roads that transport water to lakes and harbours).
Rainwater harvesting
These improvements have since limited surges, captured rainwater as a resource, he disclosed.
Outlining the history of Grundfos, Vice President of the Group Kim Skibsted said that the company was founded in 1945 in Bjerringbro, a small town in Denmark, and it has expanded its production to over 40 countries. Today Grundfos is represented by 19,000 employees in over 50 countries worldwide with an annual revenue over 3 billion euros.
With an annual production of more than 16 million pump units serving systems within buildings, industry, waste utilities, infrastructure, landscaping and water treatment, Grundfos is one of the world’s leading pump manufacturers and a trendsetter in water technology, he opined.