UVT Monitoring for raw inlet in drinking water

Listowel, Co. Kerry, Ireland

Photonic Measurements commissioned a UVT Monitor at the inlet of a Water Treatment Plant (WTP) in Co. Kerry for Uisce Éireann (formerly Irish Water). Due to the river source being heavily peated, the operators require a real-time alert when there is an event causing a surge of organic content in the water, or a drop in water quality.

The plant supplies a local population of 14,700 with 9,700 m³ of clean drinking water per day. It is vital for the plant operators to be notified of changes to water quality at inlet to conduct feed-forward maintenance and dosing. The site had previous issue with Trihalomethanes (THMs) and has tried multiple UVT monitors to identify when water quality drops but none provided the long term solution Photonic Measurements provides. We supplied our IRIS Controller, 10mm Drinking Water Probe and flowcell which is still installed today providing accurate, consistent real-time measurements.  

The initial site survey was completed with our engineers and the plant operator, the needs of the client had been assessed and a project plan was drawn up, developed and delivered. Anyone who works in water knows that even with all the similarities of WTPs that each site has it's own requirements and needs. 

The installation location was key to the success of the install and commissioning as we wanted to get a comprehensive measurement allowing the operator to get a wide scope of the water quality entering their process. When we do an install we always take into consideration local environmental and geological features which may impact the device.

Once the device was commissioned the initial results were taken and compared with lab results from a bench test, the results matched and the commission was a success. This has inspired multiple installs of the continuous monitoring solutions as Photonic Measurements provide key features that out perform our competitors in UVT Monitoring one being our electronically stable probe and no moving parts to cause mechanical failure. 

"The benefit to us from the real-time data is that we optimise a number of our process and respond faster to changes in the inlet supply. This will reduce the  spend on flocculants and sludge disposal" - Plant Operator