Clog-free wastewater pumps for Delfzijl sewage pumping station

People flush all sorts of things down the toilet and sink, including non-soluble fibrous wipes, human hair, excess grease and so much more. It regularly leads to blockages at sewage treatment plants and pumping stations. Reason enough for Waterschap Noorderzijlvest to choose clog-free wastewater pumps from Pentair, the Winterswijk-based pump specialist, when renovating Delfzijl sewage pumping station.

Noorderzijlvest Water Board manages an area the size of 144,000 hectares. This includes 113 sewage pumping stations, 13 sewage treatment plants and 366 kilometers of pressure pipes. Delfzijl pumping station pumps sewage water via Appingedam to the nearest sewage treatment plant. This makes this pumping station important to local residents, for the disposal of their wastewater. "However, we see a huge increase in the number of blockages at pumping stations. It is a major problem as well as a major cost item for water boards," says Raymond Meijnen, Manager R&D at Pentair. "A slowly clogging pump costs a lot of energy. And if the pump gets clogged, it cannot pump water and has to be shut down and cleaned. Not only a tedious job, but especially time-consuming."

XRW Series

Pentair has been developing a solution to this problem since 2018. And with success. "The complete XRW series is a newly developed pump range that has been officially on the market as a standard pump range since the end of 2024. The solution lies in the design of the impeller, the rotating part in the pump that moves water and boosts pressure," according to Raymond. "In fact, the right impeller geometry can prevent a lot of misery and thus also contribute to a saving in energy consumption. The innovative XRW series is not only clog-free, but also has a high efficiency, and is virtually vibration-free, as several long-term tests have shown. Reason enough for Waterschap Noorderzijlvest to implement this technology at the Delfzijl pumping station as well."

Proven clog-free and durable

In the second part of 2024, Pentair delivered two new wastewater pumps to the water board of the type XRW1-250.40. "The choice for these type of pumps was based on experiences of other colleagues," says Martin Post, property manager of Noorderzijlvest Water Board. "In the past I had to go to this pumping station once or twice a month to clear blockages, sometimes even every week. Since the new pumps are in place, this seems to be a thing of the past, as they have now been running for six months and I have not been here once for blockages." According to Martin, the pumps are also more energy efficient. "Energy consumption has been reduced by half compared to the old pumps. The capacity of this pumping station is 1,560 m3 per hour with two pumps in operation. It also achieves that with ease. Even with one pump, a flow rate of 1,000 m3 per hour is already achieved." And Martin also speaks highly of the vibrations. "Where in the past I have seen vibrations in the piping of 30 mm/s, I am now at almost 0.0 vibration."

Pentair's new range of pumps is modular in design. "Components are interchangeable within the different pump types. In addition, the pumps are manufactured entirely in our Winterswijk plant, from casting to final product. All this contributes to the high quality we strive for, which ultimately results in a reduction of total life cycle costs for the customer," Raymond concludes.

Based on the success at sewage pumping station Delfzijl, there is now also an order for the pumping station in Appingedam. Two pumps with a slightly smaller connection size: type XRW1-200.40.