Every drop of water is precious and Rotork plays a vital role in preserving this life-giving resource.

As a leading provider of flow control solutions, Rotork’s products are essential to ensuring the efficient and reliable operation of critical water infrastructure. They help to minimise water loss, optimise energy use and support the full circular economy of water.

That’s why Rotork supports World Water Day and charities such as Pump Aid, which is providing people with access to clean water supplies globally.

Hari Babu, Head of Strategy Water & Power, highlighted Rotork’s important role in helping to develop water resources across the globe: “Water is essential to life and our products help manage the flow of this precious resource across all sectors from the water supply infrastructure, which controls reservoirs and dam levels, through to the delivery of potable water and its subsequent use in residential and industrial applications.

“Our products are also there in water and wastewater treatment plants to ensure nothing is wasted of this valuable resource, and we are finding a growing market in the desalination of sea water to provide lifegiving reserves in regions such as the Middle East, North Africa and parts of South America where ground water reserves are scarce or highly regulated.”

These water related-applications are being made more efficient thanks to the increasing digitisation and automation that Rotork is developing into its products. A good example of a recent project win is the new desalination plant in Casablanca, which will be the largest facility in Africa.

Hari said: “In Morocco, 70% of the groundwater is used for agriculture, so to meet the nation’s potable and industrial needs the government is developing desalination plants to ease demand and provide a sustainable way of providing water.

“There are around 16,000 desalination plants around the world, each with an average production of 95,000 m³ per day. However, the Casablanca plant is the biggest we have been involved in. Production capacity of the first phase will be 548,000 m³ per day, which is expected to be operational by late 2026, The second phase, scheduled for mid-2028, will increase this capacity to 822,000 m³ per day, with the whole plant powered by renewable energy sources.”

Rotork is supplying a wide range of intelligent electric actuation and gear solutions for different valve configurations, like plug, butterfly, ball, penstocks and globe type, that control the flow within different treatment blocks in this desalination plant.

However, what makes this project different is that the main contractor stipulated the use of electrical actuators only for major isolation and modulating valve application, which will improve the efficiency of the desalination plant by better automation of flow control application. It will also increase the reliability of the plant as the end user will get access to intelligent datasets stored within each Rotork actuator and that is critical in understanding asset health.

Hari added: “There are close to 8.5 billion people living on the planet today, of which a third don’t have access to safe water, and two fifths don’t have access to sufficient water. Water scarcity is a growing issue for the planet, and the only proven technology we have to generate potable water from saline water is desalination, so this represents a vital technology for mankind and hence is a key Growth+ target segment for us”.

“World Water Day helps us raise awareness that water is a precious resource that must be conserved and used responsibly with care and respect. This is the only way we can achieve the sustainable development goal [SDG#6] defined by the World Health Organization.”

Fresh thinking helps improve water supply in Malawi

Rotork is also promoting the central focus of World Water Day by supporting the work of Pump Aid, a UK charity working in Malawi to help make water resources in the country more sustainable.

In Malawi, it is estimated that only 60% of the thousands of water pumps that are essential to rural life are operational at any one time – meaning more than one in three people go without clean water.

That’s a situation that UK charity Pump Aid wants to rectify by enhancing the efficiency of the country’s water infrastructure through its ‘Beyond Water’ social enterprise programme. This focuses on rural water point repair and maintenance services in the three areas in the west of Malawi, helping to support a network of local water engineers to become financially sustainable to ensure long-term reliable access to water.

James Kitt, Pump Aid’s Director of Development, explained: “The issue in Malawi is not the number of water pumps but the poor functionality of the equipment and the sustainability of the network. That’s why we are focused on providing a centrally managed system that supports a network of local water pump mechanics with training and other equipment so they can provide a guaranteed service to their communities to keep the water infrastructure working.”

In areas where Pump Aid works this has increased the functionality of water pumps from 60% to more than 97%. The charity’s goal is to create a self-sustaining, locally owned social enterprise in Malawi which will guarantee water availability for everyone.

James added: “That’s why Rotork’s support is vitally important. We are delighted that our relationship with the company has been growing and it now donates £100,000 per year to our operations. That’s a significant part of our income and we are in discussions with them to leverage their expertise in engineering, training and competency management to provide virtual training for the Malawi water engineers and to strengthen the supply chain for spare parts.”

Find out more about Pump Aid’s work at https://pumpaid.org/

Read more about the United Nations World Water Day: https://www.un.org/en/observances/water-day