Electrical Solutions for Water Utilities
Pump station MCCs, VFD drive panels, telemetry RTUs, and treatment-plant PLC automation for water and wastewater utilities across Kenya and East Africa.
Powering Water Treatment and Distribution Across Kenya
Water utilities run pumping operations that span every load profile and environment: high-head transfer pumps at distribution reservoirs, submersible borehole pumps in flood-prone yards, mobile diesel-driven units in emergency response, and dosing pumps in chlorination plants. Panel Tech Systems designs the LV switchgear, motor control centres, VFD drive panels, and PLC-automation cabinets that keep water-utility operations reliable and operationally efficient.
Pump Station Switchgear
- Borehole pump head panels — IP65 outdoor cabinets housing soft starters or VFDs, overload, dry-run protection, lightning surge protection, and remote telemetry
- Booster pump MCCs — Multiple-pump installations with pressure-based pump rotation, cascade staging, and energy-balanced runtime accumulation
- Reservoir transfer pump panels — High-head, high-power VFD panels with sine-wave output filters for cable lengths typical of inter-reservoir transfers
- Dosing pump control panels — Chlorination, soda-ash, and coagulant dosing with flow-paced control and SCADA integration
- RTU cabinets — Solar-powered outdoor field cabinets with cellular or LoRa back-haul for remote borehole and reservoir monitoring
Treatment Plant Automation
Water treatment requires deterministic control: clarifier sludge withdrawal, sand-filter backwash sequencing, post-chlorination contact time, distribution-pressure modulation. We integrate Siemens, Schneider, and Allen-Bradley PLCs with SCADA visualisation tuned to operations team workflows:
- Filter backwash sequencing with automatic media-level monitoring
- Coagulant dosing tied to incoming turbidity
- UV disinfection control with lamp-hour management
- Effluent quality monitoring (turbidity, residual chlorine, pH) with alarms to operations
- Energy reporting tied to volume pumped for KPI tracking
Energy Efficiency on Pumping Loads
Pumping is typically the largest energy line on a water utility's bill. VFD retrofits on variable-flow pumps achieve 30–50% energy savings; the same VFD also eliminates water hammer, reduces seal wear, and protects motor insulation. Our designs include energy submetering on every drive so the operator can quantify savings month over month.
Reliability in Rough Environments
- IP65 enclosures standard for outdoor pump head and booster cabinets; IP66 for flood-prone sites
- Stainless-steel cabinets for coastal and corrosive installations
- Lightning surge protection on every outdoor cabinet — borehole sites in particular take frequent strikes
- Backup power planning: ATS for grid-fed sites, solar+battery hybrid for grid-marginal sites
- Spare component kits bundled with the panel — typical pump-station spares (relays, breakers, surge devices) so a failure doesn't mean an outage
From rural borehole communities to county water utility headworks and treatment plants, our panels deliver the reliability that public water supply demands.
Building or upgrading water utilities infrastructure?
Our engineers will scope, design, and deliver electrical systems built to your sector's reliability standards.
