Vacuum sewer systems
Fuvahmulah island, The Maledives
650+ projecten
worldwide
Introduction
At the Southwest of India, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, lies the Maldives. An archipel of approximately 1200 islands, whereof 200 populated. The Maldives are known for its white beaches, clear blue water with tropical fishes and swaying palm trees. At the Southern part of the Maldives lies Fuvahmulah, the third largest island. In 2021, Qua-vac has upgraded Fuvahmulah’s existing vacuum sewer system to Vacuflow®.
The challenge
Fuvahmulah is one of the biggest populated islands in this area. It has a diverse ecosystem, including rainforests, freshwater lakes, swamps and coral beaches. The island is often exposed to heavy waves, and to seasonal rainfall, which can cause flooding problems.
Vacuum sewage system
Because of the vulnerable habitat this beautiful island choose for a vacuum sewage system. Vacuum sewerage offers a lot of benefits compared to a traditional sewage system. It’s not only a cost saving solution, but mostly a simple and flexible system with way less impact on the total environment. Because of small diameter pipes and the possibility to lift them vertically, excavation is very limited.
The vacuum system on the island, which was installed in 2017, was not suitable for the environmental circumstances on Fuvahmulah. Particularly in situations with heavy rainfall the collection chambers were floated and needed to be drained manually with a vacuum truck. With more than 600 collection chambers on the island this was a laborious task for the citizens of the island.
The solution
Because of good performance and over 50 years of experience in the field of vacuum sewer systems, Qua-vac was asked to upgrade the outdated sewerage system on Fuvahmulah as well. As a result of that, all collection chambers on the island were converted to reliable and sophisticated float controllers, instead of membrane controllers. The membrane valves have been converted to 63 mm piston type valves which will reduce the total maintenance of the vacuum system with 80%.
Besides of upgrading the collection chambers, Qua-vac also delivered 14 pieces of 500 m3/h vacuum pumps that will replace the pumps. This upgrade towards the Qua-vac Vacuflow® system will last at least 30 to 40 years.
Also, we have installed, tested and commissioned our LoRA based chamber monitoring system.
The result
In April 2021, the project was inaugurated by the Vice President of Fuvahmulah, Mr. Faisal Naseems and all citizens of the island were informed by our client Fenaka Corporation Limited, about the improvement on the island. Since then, Fuvahmulah has had a reliable and future-proof vacuum sewerage system.
More information
Would you like to learn more about our vacuum sewer solutions? Please contact our specialists!