Williamsgate - Evergreen Water Solutions Ltd

Williamsgate Project Summary

Williamsgate is the UK's first drinking water installation of the Volute dewatering technology!

Evergreen Water Solutions worked with MWH to deliver a Volute Dewatering Solution for United Utilities at Williamsgate WTW. AS part of the AMP 7 capital work and growth drivers in the catchment, United Utilities were required to build a completely new drinking water plant in the north west of England.

The Volute Dewatering press was selected to be the best solution, when comparing whole life CAPEX costs against existing technologies on the market. What was innovative for Williamsgate was that it was the first permanent installation in the UK on drinking water sludges. This decision was based on years worth of pilot plant trials on a range of clean water sludge types. What was discovered was that the Volute is particularly good for at dewatering drinking water sludges, which are known to be particularly difficult to dewater. This is due to the low fiber content, leading to a reduction in compressibility. However due to the Volute design and control philosophy with the flocculation tank and screw, the solids loading can be modulated to suit the sludge type and cake target.

Construction date: July 2022
Customer United Utilities
Location: Cockermouth, Cumbria

Williamsgate Project Article

Challenge & Solution

Reduced maintenance and downtime

The simplistic design means there is less points of failure, with the main 2 maintenance tasks including ring replacement at >10,000 hours running and screw refurbishment/ replacement at >30,000 hours running. As the drinking water sludge is less abrasive than other industrial or waste applications we can expect this to be far greater than the minimum stated hours above.

Low energy consumption

The main electrical consumption for the Volute instillation is the screw motor, which typically turns at low speed at approx. 2-6 RPM. For the Williamsagte installation during normal operation producing sludge cake, each screw motor consumes just 2.5A

Innovation in the Drinking Water Treatment

As this is the first European instillation of a Volute Dewatering Press into the drinking water market, with years of pilot plant trials to get to this point, is milestone achieve for both Evergreen and for innovation in the Drinking Water dewatering technologies.