Online condition monitoring system helps Environment Agency

The Environment Agency has installed an FAG online condition monitoring system at one of its remote pumping stations in Winestead near Hull to enable its engineers to make key asset management decisions regarding two critical floodwater pumps.

Situated on the outskirts of the village of Patrington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the Winestead pumping station is remotely located across the end of a drain. The station houses two 240kW vertical spindle, axial flow pumps that each transfer 3,700 litres of floodwater per second back into the river. The pumps were originally commissioned in 1976 and were designed to last for 50 years with major refurbishments in that timescale.

The Environment Agency in Hull is responsible for up to 100 pumping station sites across the region. Depending on its location, each station can house from one small submersible pump up to four larger 250kW units.  Historically, these pumps would have been more involved in preventing tidal flooding.  However, nowadays, with the reduction in availability of undeveloped agricultural land that had originally provided better drainage and soak away facilities, they are increasingly being used to pump larger amounts of rainwater back into the surrounding rivers.