The Spitzmühle waterworks building from outside

Turning on the taps for a booming region

Water is an essential element of our everyday lives. Ensuring an uninterrupted supply of clean drinking water in compliance with increasingly demanding legal requirements is a challenge for water supply utilities, especially in hot summers with little rain. This situation is exacerbated by increasing demand for water in agriculture. Only with experienced project partners at their side can water companies make precious water continuously available in the required quantity and quality.

The project: Construction of the Spitzmühle waterworks

The area of Brandenburg administered by the Strausberg-Erkner water board borders on Berlin to the east. In contrast to many other areas of the new German federal states, it is considered a growth region.

The newly constructed Spitzmühle waterworks replaced the existing Bötzsee waterworks in 2014, and has since supplied water to the region together with three other waterworks in the area administered by the Strausberg-Erkner water board (Wasserverband Strausberg-Erkner, WSE).

Spitzmühle is indispensable as it covers the base load for the area administered by the WSE. With local land usage being dominated by owner-occupied homes, enormous leaps in consumption are common – especially in the summer months. The quantities handled by the waterworks therefore fluctuate between 100 m³ and 1470 m³ per hour. KSB pumps play an important role in ensuring that the entire system operates reliably.

The machine hall of the Spitzmühle waterworks with filter vessels and pipes — The enormous filter vessels in the machine hall of the waterworks © WSE

The customer: Wasserverband Strausberg-Erkner (Strausberg-Erkner water board)

Wasserverband Strausberg-Erkner (WSE) supplies almost 170,000 inhabitants with fresh drinking water via a network of pipelines, shut-off valves and hydrants extended over more than 1,300 km. Five pressure booster stations ensure that drinking water is supplied at sufficient pressure, even in higher areas. The area administered by the board covers around 552 km² including 3 towns and 13 municipalities in the rural districts of Barnim, Märkisch-Oderland and Oder-Spree.

The challenge: Responsibility for a trouble-free drinking water supply

While the failure of urban or municipal waste water systems would have little noticeable impact on inhabitants within a limited period of time, drinking water supply must always function 100% – round the clock, 365 days a year and at every conceivable temperature.

In addition to providing a continuous base supply of fresh water to residents, industry and agriculture, water suppliers must also react to peak demand at short notice without this leading to reduced water quality or a loss of water pressure for consumers. Sudden increases in water consumption occur at certain times of the day and can be triggered by unforeseen events. The supply technology utilised must be designed to handle such peak loads and be able to operate reliably during long periods of drought in the hot summer months.

Etanorm pumps, pipes and valves in the machine hall of the Spitzmühle waterworks — Various Etanorm pump models for drinking water supply and filter flushing systems © WSE

The solution: Standardised water pumps that have proven themselves many times over

Construction of the Spitzmühle waterworks involved many factors, but ensuring reliable operation of the pumps had top priority. The well pumps transport large quantities of water from the Spitzmühle East catchment groundwater wells. In the first stage of the treatment process, the pumped groundwater is enriched with oxygen. In the waterworks’ machine hall, the water is cleaned of iron and manganese, among other substances, in enormous filter vessels. After the final stage – deacidification – the drinking water is temporarily stored in the pure water chambers. Until the water is finally fed into the pipes to the consumer in drinking water quality, it has to be pumped through the various processing stages by a total of 21 KSB pumps.

In cooperation with the lead engineering office LOPP from Weimar, the Strausberg-Erkner water board considered various pump suppliers during the planning process. In the end, the results of a cost-benefit analysis tipped the scales in favour of pumps from KSB. A decisive aspect was WSE’s wish to order everything from one supplier. Even though the KSB pumps examined in comparable projects had proved to be extremely reliable and fail-safe, a technical defect can never be 100% ruled out. In this case, a specialist service must be available staffed by experts who understand the relevant pump technology in detail and can provide immediate service when required.

Having worked together for 30 years, KSB and Würdig-Pumpentechnik from Berlin have established a relationship characterised by competence and reliability. The staff at Würdig-Pumpentechnik are trained in the functionality and servicing of KSB pumps and the provider keeps all important spare parts in stock. It goes without saying that Würdig is also responsible for regular servicing.

UPA submersible borehole pumps from KSB are used to pump water from groundwater wells, while Etanorm pumps which have proven themselves in the production and pumping of drinking water for countless projects are used for the drinking water. More than 1.5 million of these so-called standardised water pumps have been sold worldwide to date, and in this project they have also been installed in the filter flushing system.

Thanks to the demand-driven selection of these pumps, the Strausberg-Erkner water board will be able to offer the best water price in the state of Brandenburg long after the Spitzmühle waterworks have been completed. Even if demand for water increases in the future, there is no reason why WSE should not be able to offer this vital resource reliably and in exceptional quality at a fair price.

Figures I Data I Facts

System: Waterworks
End user: Strausberg-Erkner water board

Project data: