Evaluation of Energy Efficiency of Water Pumps in Zanjan Province of Iran

In recent decades, growth and development of countries have been coincided with great increase in water demand. So renewable and sustainable water resources used in the past, have been replaced with sustainable and energy dependent resources. Scattered information indicates that the irrigation pump efficiency is undesirable. Therefore, the present research was conducted to evaluate the irrigation pumps efficiencies. To implement the project, 104 pumping stations were selected in Zanjan province, Iran, considering the feasibility of efficiency measurement, for this purpose, the discharge rate, water pressure and its temperature were measeared. Also, input voltage and current for electrically driven, and, fuel consumption for diesel engine driven pumps were measured. Results showed that the average efficiencies were 36%, 20/78%, 11/57%, 6/82%, 17/83% for submersible pumps, drainage electro pumps, centrifugal electro pumps diesel engine driven centrifugal pumps and diesel engine driven multistage centrifugal pumps respectively. Results suggested that, replacing diesel engine driven pumps with electric pumps, using a single large pumps instead of several small pumps, organizing training courses for farmers, improving extension services, periodic inspection of the stations and in place measurement of pumps efficiencies by responsible bodies, can significantly improve the efficiency of the pumps efficiencies, and significant amount of savings in annual energy consumption and investment in electricity industry as well as reducation in environmental pollution can be achieved.