In February of this year Lahmeyer International was awarded the patent rights for a new type of pumping station, the first of which is currently being built in Egypt. The new technology allows a considerable reduction in the investment volume compared with traditional pumping stations.
The pumps are positioned in pairs back to back in the pump house. The pump inlet systems lie along both sidewalls of the pump house. The discharge pipes are positioned above the inlet systems, making a very narrow pump house possible. Innovative is the way in which the water is discharged through concrete ducts. Each pump feeds a separate duct. The ducts are grouped in a concrete frame structure, they run first of all along the longitudinal axis of the pump house, then over a bridge and end in a siphon outlet system.
This prototype pumping station has been designed to house 24 vertical-shaft pumps with variable rotational speed, each requiring 12 MW to pump 16.7 m³/s, thus a total of 240 MW at 334 m³/s in one pump house, 20 pumps operating in parallel – exceeding all past performance figures.
This new and cost-saving type of pumping station has been designed by Lahmeyer International's engineers in cooperation with our consortium partners, Hamza Associates of Egypt and Hitachi of Japan. It is not only technically innovative, cost and space saving, but it is also an architecturally impressive structure. The pumping station appears like an island in a lake and harmonizes with the landscape.
The client, the Mechanical and Electrical Department (MED) of the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources in Cairo, plans to establish an industrial and residential area in the Egyptian desert after the completion of the pumping station.
