PRESSURE C0NTR0L - A SUCCESS ST0RY IN REDUCING L0SSES IN 0NE 0F THE W0RLD'S LAR6EST WATER SUPPLY 0RGCANIZATI0NS

摘要

SABESP is one of the largest water undertakings in the worid today. It supplies a population of approximately 17 million people through a distribution network of 26,000 kilometers of pipe, in the Metropolitan area alone. SABESP is also responsible for many other systems in the State of Sao Paulo. SABESP supplies approximately 60,000 liters per second with losses calculated at around 40. Approximately 10 of the system is subject to rotational supply, due to lack of capacity. pproximately A majority of the leaks in the SABESP system are on the service lines. SABESP attends approximately 35,000 leak situations per month. With this amount of new leakage occurring it is vcry hard to reduce the levels of loss through standard leak detection programs. It is also not realistic at this point to consider replacing all service connections. In l996 SABESP undertook a feasibility study to implement operational control at distribution level. One of the major outcomes of this study was the impact of pressure management using new technology controllers. Since this original feasibi1ity study SABESP has embarked upon a serious program of pressure management. In 1997 contracts were let for installation of l1l pressure-controlled sectors, on a turnkey basis. In 1998 SABESP intends to let turnkey contracts for a further 382 installations and l16 other sectors which are to be installed internally by SABESP engineers. This paper outlines the technical efforts and financial gains to-date, with further information on the overall predicted cost to benefit of the project.