Creating a ‘self-learning’ system for water conservation in Ploesti, RomaniaThe Romanian city took drastic measures to fix a system that once wasted 50% of consumable water
About 60km away from Bucharest, Romania lies Ploesti, a medium-sized city with big goals for water conservation.
A few years ago, Ploesti officials realised that they were losing 30% of water coming from the Ploesti Nord Gageni water supply zone, one of four water supply zones for the city. That totalled 1.5m m3 of water lost per year.
Clearly, a conservation system needed to be put in place to save water – and money.
Improving the improvements
The Ploesti Nord Gageni zone supplies water to 60,000 consumers and pumps 100,000 m3 per week. While 30% is a lot of water to lose, the situation was even worse a decade ago. Ploesti Nord Gageni had already reduced water losses from 50% to 30% over the last 10 years by installing new pumps, replacing pipes and dropping pressure at night. But the system was still not as efficient as it could have been.
One of the ways Ploesti Nord Gageni initially reduced loss was by using proportional pressure to control the water supply. Proportional pressure creates a variable flow, which allows for an adjustable flow rate based on the time of day or other environmental factors.
