A £190 million improvement project is underway at the Thames Water Beckton sewage treatment site that will enable it to treat up to 60% more sewage and fully treat increased flows during heavy rainfall. A key area of the improvement is the motorisation of manually operated valves, upgrading of obsolete actuation equipment and the expansion of Profibus DP digital two-wire control and monitoring throughout the site. Rotork’s specialist Retrofit department is closely involved with these activities. One of these recently included the installation of Rotork IQPro intelligent electric actuators on the site’s inlet penstocks, replacing manually operated electric hoists and chains. The actuators are programmed internally to pause when opening the substantial 150 x 300cm penstocks at 10% of the travel position, in order to prevent any build-up of sludge from potentially overwhelming the inlet screening plant. The latest Rotork retrofit project focused on the upgrade of valve actuation on the site’s primary settlement tanks and activated sludge plant. Seventy-five IQPro actuators have been installed on existing valves and penstocks in a scheme that includes the introduction of fully actuated operated of the blowers with Profibus monitoring and control. Rotork’s contract also included the design and manufacture of associated valve adaptation parts. The residual sludge produced at Beckton is burnt in the site’s SPG (Sludge Powered Generator), which produces 7.5MW of electricity for use on-site. The Beckton improvement project is due for completion in 2014.
