Water Efficiency Team (WET)
Our Water Efficiency Team (WET) was formed as part of a new water conservation initiative at the Birkenhead Plant. The initiative began after South Australia's Water Business Sustainability Group was commissioned to conduct an audit of water usage at our Plant.
The WET has achieved great results, reducing water usage by around 14,000 kilolitres at year - enough water to service 100 households over a 12 month period.
The Water Business Sustainability Group and WET identified areas where water usage could be more efficient, including during distribution, operational processes and truck washes and also looked at opportunities for collection ponds, irrigation, metering and data logging and water recycling. Click here to read more about stormwater management on site.
To date, WET has replaced solenoid valves on all cooling towers, repaired minor leaks identified through a data logging process and reprogrammed a large compressor to operate more efficiently.
However, the biggest impact on our ability to conserve water will be the accurate assessment and measurement of water usage on site from all major sources. We are currently in the process of installing sub-meters in key locations to measure water usage in real-time and feed this information to online central control dashboards. This will enable us to more accurately identify areas to create and implement water saving initiatives.