Visit to Cully Automation Ltd.

http://www.cullyautomation.ie/

Biswajit Basu (professor in Civil Engineering School at Trinity College Dublin), Irene Fernandes (Postdoctorate of our project) and Nilki Weerawardana (PhD researcher in Smart water networks control) visited Cully Automation in Leixlip, Ireland.

Cully Automation Ltd is an innovative company which offers a wide range of services from design and installation of primary measurement equipment to large scale process automation. They work closely with Irish water in remotely monitoring water networks for any leakage or anomalies.

 David Cully (Operations Director) took the Dwr Uisce team on a visit to see their existing monitoring water networks and leakage reducing technologies. Cully provided us with great insights on their operations management, and we also discussed how we can collaborate further through the Dwr Uisce project.

 At Cully’s facilities there are test networks with predefined leaks. In her PhD research, Nilki plans to implement new control algorithm that can be deployed and tested at Cully’s water networks to see if leakage reduction occurs. The deployment of Nilki’s new algorithms is scheduled to happen at the end of 2019.

David Cully and Dwr Uisce team discussed about the potential for future joint funded projects. William Lynch from Cully Automation pitched at the 2018 Dwr Uisce conference and made contacts through our smart specialisation cluster. This industry academic collaboration is very promising for both Trinity College Dublin and Cully Automation and we are very happy to have them on board!

Work in progress at the Dwr Uisce hydro demo site in Blackstairs, Co. Wexford (Ireland)

Despite the blanket of snow that fell on site by the beginning of February, works on the Irish Dwr Uisce hydro demo site are progressing as planned. The scheme will be powered by a 4.3 kW Pump-As-Turbine fed by the incoming pressurized raw water entering the treatment works, and is expected to cut the energy consumption of the works by 20-25%. More details available here.

Below are a few suggestive pictures taken on 1/2/2019 showing the progress of the work.

The turbine and generator have been delivered at the site and are ready to be installed.

A view of the concrete pad on which the turbine will lay.

Installation of the DWHR demonstrator at Penrhyn Castle has started

The installation of the drain water heat recovery system at the kitchen drain at Penrhyn Castle, Wales, has started. Three different configurations of the system will be tested, the expected heating savings for the kitchen range from 25-38%.

The drainage drops from the tea room kitchen on the floor above, through the coal yard into the sewer system. At a 2m drop through the coal yard, the drain pipe is replaced by two copper heat exchangers. One of them will serve to preheat the feed water, similar to traditional heat recovery from showers. The second one will heat a recirculating loop, in order to address mismatches between hot water demand in the kitchen, and the availability of hot drain water.

The works are performed by Askews, the final touches will be put on the system on Friday February 1st.

Visits will start in the Summer of 2019.

Jan presenting at the Future in Food Conference 2018

On November 28th, Jan presented the Dwr Uisce project, and our work within heat recovery from commercial kitchen drains, at the Future in Food Conference, at the Pairc Ui Chaoimh, in Cork. His presentation titled ‘DWHR from commercial kitchens: Insights from the Dwr Uisce project’ was part of the Sustainable Development Goals section of the conference. The conference proposed a wide selection of presentations, including environmental sustainability in the food sector, and reducing food waste, but also cyber security, new market development and certification.

Jan’s presentation highlighted a sector-wide, technical heat recovery potential in the UK of around 1.35 TWh/year, which could result in a yearly reduction in Carbon equivalent emissions of around 210 000 tons. Jan discussed the effects of the current heating fuel and the kitchen’s hot water consumption on the financial feasibility of such projects and highlighted a mismatch between financial feasibility and environmental benefit for kitchens with smaller hot water consumption. He presented Dwr-Uisce’s laboratory set-up aiming at addressing this unexploited potential.

http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2017/09/26/redevelopment-pairc-ui-chaoimh-stadium-cork/

Numerous industrial players and sectoral collaboration programs and platforms with activities in Ireland and the UK presented their work at information desks in the conference venue. A key message was the need for collaboration, and sharing best practices within the sector, this is one of the key activities of the Dwr-Uisce project, as well.