High-Speed Turbo Blowers: Need … Or Just Want?

By Juan Loera, company-wide expert, Carollo Engineers

There are important considerations to make before you purchase an aeration blower.

High-speed, direct-drive turbo blowers are the latest game-changing technological application in the wastewater industry. But what makes them the must-have tool for today’s wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)? To answer that question, we must look at the daily challenges WWTP operators and managers face. Shrinking budgets, increased service demands, and more stringent regulations require treatment plants to do more with less. In fact, for a typical WWTP, more than half of the plant’s total energy demand is related to process air requirements, and energy costs represent roughly 75 percent of the total blower life-cycle cost.

Thus, aeration blowers are an enticing target for energy efficiency improvements and the desire to cut power costs. In particular, high-speed, direct-drive turbo blowers offer potentially significant energy efficiency and power savings when compared to other centrifugal or positive-displacement blowers.