System upgrade delivers high quality water to Rochdale

State-of-the-art ultra filtration membrane system installed at the United Utilities treatment works in Rochdale

A modular MEMCOR ultra filtration membrane system has been installed at the United Utilities treatment works in Rochdale.

The new membrane combines two stages of water treatment in one micro membrane filtration unit and now delivers high quality water to Rochdale.

The system is a pressurised and pre-engineered system. The system incorporates automated processes including backwashing to remove built up solids from membrane surfaces at regular intervals as well as an in built cleaning and membrane testing integrity.

The new project required the use of the existing building on Clay Lane so this meant that the new membrane plant needed to be compact. By using the existing building, this saved United Utilities time, disruption and costs to bill payers.

This was a £15m project to re-build the front end of the works using a state-of-the-art membrane technology which has not been used anywhere else in the UK.

Evoqua Water Technologies worked closely with United Utilities and contractors KMI Plus to identify the right technology to meet the sites regulatory and capacity challenges, as well as providing a cost effective and sustainable solution.

As the design for the membrane was simple, Evoqua Water Technologies were also able to install platforms around the works to make every area of the system accessible to operators.

Before the new system was installed, the team at Evoqua undertook a pilot scale trial to demonstrate the full capabilities of the system and to ensure that it would deliver the quality of water needed to supply the area.

The trial was a success and confirmed the systems ability to adapt to the works raw water quality as well as delivering high quality water.

Installation of the new system was completed within 14 months.

A spokesperson for United Utilities said: “We have been completing final site works and carrying out performance trials which have proved to us that this has been a good technology.”

The works, which are located on Clay Lane in Norden, were built over 60 years ago and supplies around 100,000 people in the Rochdale area with drinking water. The works also deliver around 16 million litres of water to people’s taps every day from Greenbooth and Naden reservoirs.