Upgrading a Reliable Necessity – Piston Pumps at the Greeley WWTP

Written by Joshua DiValentino, December 2, 2015

The City of Greeley, Colorado, wastewater treatment facility recently implemented a series of strategic upgrades and major improvements were made to the Biosolids Facility. The Greeley facility repurposes its dewatered biosolids cake by trucking it for land application into remote Northern Colorado. The existing Schwing Bioset piston pump located in the sludge dewatering building had been in operation for 20 years and was a key component of this process.

The Greeley facility had relied on its sole Schwing Bioset KSP 25 cake pump for two decades prior to the upgrades. During that time, the existing pump was the only means of transportation for dewatered biosolids between the centrifuge dewatering equipment and the truck loading bin. The piston pump could have been a “bottle-neck” for a facility with limited storage capacity. However, the existing pump provided an exceptionally high level of uptime over its operational life at Greeley, with minimal wear part consumption.

By 2014-15 the sole KSP 25 had been in operation since the mid 90’s. The City of Greeley facility, working on a larger plant upgrade, decided to implement a new pumping system for the coming decades. Greeley once again chose to invest in a Schwing Bioset KSP Piston pump.

In order to be as cost effective as possible, but also provide maximum redundancy for the foreseeable future, Greeley chose to purchase a new KSP 25, as well as upgrade the existing KSP unit to modern standards. The existing pump was upgraded to match the new KSP unit with control modifications, and upgraded safety features offer easier remote operation and even longer wear part life. The existing unit was also outfitted with a new Hydraulic Power Unit, offering modern hydraulic feed pumps and unlimited control variability.  The two pumps provide redundancy and additional capacity for growth, as well as a modern control network with the current plant SCADA.

The new pump system included a Hydraulic Power Pack, a Twin Screw Feeder, the Control Panel, and of course the Piston Pump. The Schwing Bioset services team worked with the installing contractor and Greeley personnel to integrate the updated control system features on both pumps with the plant MCC.  The new Schwing Bioset KSP cake pumping system (complete with two fully-operational pumps) was turned over to the City of Greeley in the fall of 2015.

To learn more about this project specifically or learn more about our pumps, please contact this blog’s author, Josh DiValentino, call 715.247.3433, and/or visit our website here: SBI Municipal Pumps.