Stimulus funds help the Scottsdale Water Resources Department see the potential for energy efficiency from savings from more efficient aeration.
Two 300 hp APG-Neuros turbo blowers will save the Scottsdale Water Campus wastewater treatment plant about 47.5 million kWh over the next 10 years, a reduction of about 40 percent.
The units can be adjusted to match wastewater flows. The $771,000 cost was covered by a U.S. DOE grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in 2009, officials with the Scottsdale (Ariz.) Water Resources Department were drawn to it by the availability of grant funding. Scottsdale secured a grant through the U.S. Department of Energy for turbo blowers to replace multi-stage centrifugal blowers at two wastewater reclamation plants. The $1 million grant covered nearly the entire $1.08 million project, which went online in early 2012 after three years of planning and design by Valentine Environmental Engineers and installation by MGC Contractors, both local firms. There is the potential to see as much as a 40 percent reduction in electrical use for process air requirements with the implementation of the turbo blowers, selected through a public bidding process. “Since then, we’ve started looking at opportunities that aren’t tied to stimulus funds,” says Art Nunez, director of Water Reclamation Services.