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Application High-Speed Turbo Blowers: Need … Or Just Want? There are important considerations to make before you purchase an aeration blower. By Juan Loera H plant's energy efficiency woes, there is a lot more to think igh-speed, direct-drive turbo blowers are the latabout before you select this technology. est game-changing technological application in the wastewater industry. But what makes them the must-have tool for today's wastewater treatWhich Blower Is Right For Your Needs? ment plants (WWTPs)? To answer that question, we must You probably wouldn't buy a top-of-the-line smartphone for look at the daily challenges WWTP operators and managsomeone who doesn't text, use email, or surf the Internet. ers face. Shrinking budgets, increased service demands, Why pay for features that aren't appropriate for the user? The and more stringent regulations require treatment plants to same is true with blowers. When considering a new blower, do more with less. In fact, for a typical WWTP, more than turbo or otherwise, the first step for any WWTP manager half of the plant's total energy demand is related to prois to look carefully at the different technologies available cess air requirements (Figure 1), and energy costs repreand match the right technology with the treatment plant's sent roughly 75 percent of the total blower life-cycle cost. needs. Over the past few years there have been significant Thus, aeration blowers are innovations to blower technolan enticing target for energy ogy, and the entire industry, efficiency improvements and from engineers, manufacturers, Understanding how the blower the desire to cut power costs. and end users, have helped In particular, high-speed, usher in a new era of blower will perform with your system direct-drive turbo blowers designs and applications. So, and application is crucial to offer potentially significant should you get a single-stage energy efficiency and power blower? Multi-stage centrifugal? picking the right equipment. savings when compared to High-speed centrifugal? Positive other centrifugal or positivedisplacement? Or should you displacement blowers. really get that fancy, new, high-speed turbo blower? What To put it simply, a case of perfect timing and multiple will be most efficient for your system, and what will give you forces pushing in the same direction drove the evolution the best value? of high-speed, direct-drive turbo blowers in the wastewaFigure 2 on the next page shows a comparison of blower ter industry. However, they performance curves for each are not necessarily the best of the major types of blowsolution for every project. ers. As you can see, each There are a variety of factors type of blower has its own that influence blower seleccharacteristic performance tion, including design flow curve and, therefore, will rates, number and redundanoperate and respond differcy of blower units, turndown ently to each WWTP facility, requirements, maintenance which is why a one-sizeexperience and preferences, fits-all approach hardly ever coordination of air demand works. Understanding how and control, and site-specific the blower will perform with operating conditions. While your system and application it may seem that having a is crucial to picking the right high-speed turbo blower equipment, and making sure is the panacea for all your you don't spend a lot of 12 wateronline.com ■ Water Online The Magazine