The Westerlo water production centre, which lies east of Antwerp, will disinfect the drinking water using the new medium pressure UV technology. Following Grobbendonk and Herentals, Westerlo will be the third water works to use one of WEDECO's large-scale drinking water disinfection plants, further underlining the Belgian authorities complete confidence in UV disinfection technology and WEDECO.
PIDPA is one of the three largest water suppliers in Belgium. With an annual capacity of 63 million cubic metres of drinking water, it supplies over 434,000 households in the province of Antwerp. For the three supply lines at its Westerlo water works, PIDPA has ordered two medium pressure KM 2500 reactors and one KM 1200 reactor. The dynamic throughput capacity totals 4700 m3 per hour.
As is standard practice with groundwater, the untreated water undergoes sand filtration after atmospheric oxygen aeration and decantation. The water is then disinfected using ultraviolet light and a small amount of chlorine (deposit) is added to protect against recolonization within the pipeline system.
Westerlo is an older water production centre and therefore a limited amount of space is available. The new UV plant thus had to be powerful but of particularly small dimensions. For this reason, medium pressure technology was given preference over the more usual low pressure technology. Delivery, installation and commissioning are due to take place in the second half of 2002.
Michael Baas believes the Belgian drinking water industry's decision to favour UV technology is further confirmation of an already long-evident paradigm shift in society. The trend towards rejecting conventional high chlorination in favour of alternative methods such as UV disinfection is irrevocable.
(Duesseldorf, 13 February, 2002)
Information & Contact:
WEDECO B.V. Water Technology
Managing Director:
Michael Baas
Steenovenweg 5
NL-5708 HN Helmond
Tel. +31 492 472 464
Fax +31 492 472 635
