The Nothingham Pump Station is situated on the banks of the Orange River and feeds the Bosman Canal that runs down to the Vaal River Weir. Out of the canal and weir farmers irrigate more than 2000 Ha.
The pumpstation contain 9 x 650Kw pumps running at 950 RPM at 6600V and driving 500/600 pumps, pumping 1150 l/s each.
Before the automation of the pump station, the irrigation board experienced huge surges during ESCOM power cuts. We have installed an 800mm feeder pipe and steel surge tank to overcome this problem.
Due to the ESCOM power crisis a tender came out for the complete automation of the station. All the valves in the pump station were motorized, and instrumentation added that include temperature, vibration and positioning indicators fitted.
With all 9 pumps running, the enormous amount of heat had to be dealt with. We installed two 15Kw evaporating coolers with an combined airflow of 24 000 l/s.
On completion the pumpstation are controlled via the REMS system from Pretoria to stop and start the units during peak demand periods. Savings of up to 4MW has been recorded over a one day period, without the opperators having to drive the 20Km drive to the station twice a day.
The irrigation board are able to monitor and control the pumps from their Douglas bases office, and can read the canal water levels at 8 different points.
