Water supply dilemma of the mountain city
Because of its unique geographical features as a mountain city, Chongqing is troubled by difficulties with water transportation and high cost.
With the rapid economic development and urbanization pace, Chongqing's water consumption keeps rising; likewise, the network coverage continues to grow. Water enterprises in this case have to speed up the pace of construction while maintaining quality water supply and service stability.
Our solution
Reinforcing constructions to meet Chongqing's water demand
Since SUEZ took charge of water production and delivery for the northern areas of Chongqing in 2002, it firstly undertook an automation system renovation over the original water plant, to achieve the real-time production monitoring and remote control all over its service area. In 2009, the company began its investment and construction of the Yuelai water plant by three phases to meet the increasing demand for water supply in the three northern areas of Chongqing. The project has been completed and put into operation in 2020 to meet the water demand for the coming 5 to 8 years.
The raw water from Jialing River features seasonal high turbidity, high sand content and high algae-laden, we thus adopted the treatment process mainly aiming at removing turbidity, i.e., DensadegTM high-density clarifier + Aquazur® V-type filter; moreover, against the conditions of E. coli heavily exceeding the standard and organics exceeding to a certain extent, we made use of ozone's oxidation and sterilization features, combined with CarbazurTM activated carbon biofilter's adsorption and biochemical properties, to remove the micro-polluting organics, iron, and some coliform from the raw water. And based on the local situation, we set up chlorination before and after filtration in order for prevention of algae breeding and final disinfection respectively. With meticulous process design and optimization of operating parameters, Yuelai Water Plant can guarantee the drinking water quality standard even in case of the seasonal turbidity up to 3000NTU.
The results
Through introduction of SUEZ advanced management and technology, Chongqing's water supply capacity, water quality and customer service level have been improved obviously. Here are some achievements:
- The daily water supply capacity rose from 940,000 m3 to 1.34 million m3; the length of network increased from 272 km to 2,193 km; and the number of users grew from 36,000 to 1.27 million households.
- As we adopted GIS system and technical renovation, the of non-revenue water rate was lowered from the initial 30% to 9%.
- We introduced the LIMS system into the central laboratory, and the lab was rated as "benchmark laboratory" in SUEZ's international laboratory competence comparison, and was accredited as China National Accreditation of Laboratories (CNAL).
- We set up a 24-hour call centre to provide customers with full range of quality services; undertake regular annual customer satisfaction surveys to understand the customers’ needs for further services improvement.
9
%
rate of non-revenue water
1.34
million m3/day
water supply capacity
+2
million
people benefit from our water supply services