ABB drives bring three-phase supply to remote pumping stations04 August 2011

Yorkshire Water reports saving the cost of installing three-phase supplies at its the Black Horse, Kirklington, Pickhill, Tunstall and Colburn Village remote pumping stations, by installing ABB low voltage ac motor drives.

These pumping stations use split-phase supplies, comprising a single-phase system using two live lines and a neutral. These provide a 240/480V, three-wire single-phase system for areas such as farms and small industrial areas.

However, Yorkshire Water's submersible sump pump motors are all three-phase units, so need a three-phase supply – a challenge that has been resolved by ABB Drives Alliance member Halcyon Drives.

Halcyon used the existing split-phase supply to create a synthetic three-phase supply by connecting the 480V supply to an ABB standard drive on two of its input phases.

The drive then converts the ac input supply to dc, converting that back to ac and outputting a three-phase 415V supply. The dc link stabilisation feature of the drives prevents voltage oscillation, caused by weak supply voltages.

"The cost of installing a three-phase supply at these remote sites can be prohibitive, and varies with the distance from the supply network," states Nick Cooper of Yorkshire Water.

As well as saving that cost, using drives in this way, he says, avoids the disadvantages of installing capacitors and contactors, which tended to be maintenance intensive.

Cooper cites other benefits as including: an ability to vary flow rates as demand changes; soft starting and stopping to avoid excessive wear and tear on the pumps; an ability to maintain constant pressure through the PID (proportional integral derivative) control feature on the drives; and energy saving.

"One of the other advantages the drives give us is the ability to log data to diagnose faults, while the three-phase ability gives us a much wider choice of standard submersible pumps," states Cooper.

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
ABB Ltd
Halcyon Electrical Co Ltd

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