REDUCING WATER PUMPING POWER COSTS.

In general, a water system is designed for peak consumption periods. During periods of low consumption, the system is in a sense over designed and inefficient. By using data on Kilowatt hour usage per million gallons of water pumped (kwh/MG) as a performance index, the system operator can develop a program using existing equipment to reduce power consumption. The strategy is to gradually allow storage levels to decrease (during periods of low consumption) before starting the pumps. This will not only minimize pump starts, but will increase run time per start. By using the kwh/MG as an index, this can be accomplished over a period of time until the efficiency improves to an acceptable level.