flooded with savings

In June of 2007, Tennessee Process Pumps of Chattanooga, Tennessee, provided one of their customers with a solution for their exorbitant energy costs. The customer, a local club, reduced their annual costs by approximately $14,000.

An Emotron FDU 2.0 in a control cabinet that was supplied by Tennessee Process Pumps.

A Nashville based club required that several acres of land be flooded. A shallow area approximately 1 1/2ft. deep is flooded to help attract wild game.

Flooding the land had previously been done by driving a tractor to the shore of a nearby river, and connecting a PTO (Power-Take-Off) driven shaft to a rice pump. The pump would then transfer water from the river to the fields. The tractor, which uses Off-Road diesel fuel, was consuming approximately 5 gallons of fuel per hour at a cost of $3 per gallon.

Michael Jackson, VP for Tennessee Pumps says ‘because the club was flooding such a large area, it takes quite some time and can be very expensive. It became imperative for the club to minimize their energy costs”. It takes 3 weeks at the beginning of each season, with the pump running 24/7 to flood the several acre fields. An additional 2-3 weeks of operation is required throughout the course of the season to keep the acreage flooded.

At the beginning of 2007, Tennessee Process Pumps proposed a solution to their customer. The solution consisted of a 50HP 10″ self-priming pump, and an Emotron FDU 2.0 Variable Frequency Drive. Emotron built their VFD into a ventilated NEMA 4 enclosure that also included inline circuit breakers, rain hoods, a thermostat, and a cooling system. The entire package was then permanently mounted onto a 10′ x 6′ double axle trailer rated for 3,500lbs., and installed at the club’s facility in October 2007.

The complete package consisting of a pump and control panel permanently mounted on a trailer has become known as the “Baby Huey” pump line. There are a variety of Baby Huey configurations available from Tennessee Process Pumps.

The Emotron Variable Frequency Drive not only provides the customer with the ability to vary the speed of the motor, but also offers complete pump protection. The FDU2.0 has all of the capabilities of the company’s renowned M20 Shaft Power Monitor built-in – the only VFD in the world to offer such a feature. This monitoring protection has served TPP’s customer well, providing protection against dry-run and deadhead conditions.

With the new setup, the supply can be altered as the demand increases or decreases. Under normal conditions the club’s new pump operates at 1,150RPM and pumps 3,000GPM, however, by using the Emotron VFD this can be cut back to 650RPM at 1,000GPM.

As a result of installing the new unit, the club can now flood their fields for far less money. Using their old PTO-driven setup with the tractor and rice pump, the amount of diesel fuel used by the club exceeded $15,000 annually. With their new “Baby Huey”, there are no more diesel fuel expenses and the club now spends about $3 per hour (less than $1,500 per year) on electricity – a savings of over $14,000 annually!

Utilizing their new “Baby Huey”, the club is now confident that their fields will be filled as inexpensively and as efficiently as possible.