Water/Wastewater Energy Efforts Boost Smart Pumps

March 6, 2014
Frost & Sullivan expects Europe’s smart pump market to grow almost 40 percent over the next five year, spurred on energy consumption concerns in the water and wastewater industry.

Water and wastewater plants typically are some of the largest consumers of energy, accounting for 30-40 percent of the energy used in a municipal government, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Looking at the situation in Europe, Frost & Sullivan has found that environmental regulations and increased focus on optimizing energy consumption in the water and wastewater industry is boosting the adoption of smart pumps across Europe.

Minimizing pump lifecycle costs is another factor in new adoptions. Although smart pumps have a higher initial cost than standard pumps, they reduce total cost of ownership by lowering maintenance and operation costs. Greater process automation along with the increase in efficiency and quality are expected to be important pump selection factors in the European water and wastewater industry.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan shows that the market earned revenues of $192.4 million in 2013 and should reach an estimated $267.9 million in 2018. The research covers positive displacement and centrifugal smart pumps.

“Tight environmental regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas and carbon emissions lend significant support to the smart pumps market,” said Niranjan Paul, industrial automation and process control research analyst for Frost & Sullivan. “This includes the Euro 2020 directive, which targets a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the levels experienced in 1990, and the Ecodesign directive that sets rigorous ecological requirements for energy-related products sold across Europe.”

However, maintenance personnel in water and wastewater treatment facilities, particularly in the municipal sector, are reluctant to install smart pumps, concerned that they would add to the complexity of installation, operation and maintenance, thus increasing the risk of stoppages in water supply. Even end users, who are aware of the benefits provided by smart pumps in terms of energy efficiency and lifecycle costs, demand stringent tests for quality and reliability before installation, the study found.

“Moving into the water quality monitoring equipment will help pump manufacturers expand their customer base and combat the intense pressure on profit margins realized by manufacturing and selling only commodities such as pumps and valves,” Paul said. “The smart water grid market will gradually become more populated as the focus on integrating pumps with various control systems, such as supervisory control and data acquisition, increases.” 

About the Author

Aaron Hand | Editor-in-Chief, ProFood World

Aaron Hand has three decades of experience in B-to-B publishing with a particular focus on technology. He has been with PMMI Media Group since 2013, much of that time as Executive Editor for Automation World, where he focused on continuous process industries. Prior to joining ProFood World full time in late 2020, Aaron worked as Editor at Large for PMMI Media Group, reporting for all publications on a wide variety of industry developments, including advancements in packaging for consumer products and pharmaceuticals, food and beverage processing, and industrial automation. He took over as Editor-in-Chief of ProFood World in 2021. Aaron holds a B.A. in Journalism from Indiana University and an M.S. in Journalism from the University of Illinois.

Companies in this Article

Sponsored Recommendations

Why Go Beyond Traditional HMI/SCADA

Traditional HMI/SCADAs are being reinvented with today's growing dependence on mobile technology. Discover how AVEVA is implementing this software into your everyday devices to...

4 Reasons to move to a subscription model for your HMI/SCADA

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) gives you the technical and financial ability to respond to the changing market and provides efficient control across your entire enterprise—not just...

Is your HMI stuck in the stone age?

What happens when you adopt modern HMI solutions? Learn more about the future of operations control with these six modern HMI must-haves to help you turbocharge operator efficiency...