Quality water services to support Chongqing's rapid development

Chongqing, as China's youngest direct-administrated municipality and the head city of China's Western Development, is the first city offering the concession license upon the opening of the Chinese urban water supply network, and also the city where SUEZ won its first full-scale water supply contract in China. Since 2002, we've taken charge of the water supply and network management services in Jiangbei District, Yubei District and North New Zone of Chongqing.

The mission

Water supply dilemma of the mountain city

Chongqing, known as a mountain city, is located in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, with fresh water resources and water quality far higher than the national average level; however, because of its unique geographical features, the city is troubled by difficulties with water transportation and high cost.

 

In the past decade or above, Chongqing has maintained a GDP on double-digit growth, which leads the country. 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.

6.3%
GDP growth rate (2019)
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, first of all, it 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 to catch up with the increasing demand for water supply in the three northern areas of Chongqing. The construction consists of three phases. Currently the first and second phases, with design capacity both at 200,000 tons/day, have been completed and put into operation.

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., Densadeg® 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 water quality even in case of the seasonal turbidity up to 3000NTU.
The results

Through introduction of SUEZ advanced management and technology, Chongqing's water supply management capacity, tap water quality and customer service level has been hugely upgraded, specific performance as below:

 

  • The daily water supply capacity rose from 345,000 m3 to 940,000 m3; the length of network increased from 272 km to 1,807 km; and the number of users grew from 36,000 to 1,050,000 households.
  • As we adopted GIS system and technical renovation, the rate of non-revenue water was lowered from the initial 30% to the current 14.82%.
  • 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 center to provide customers with a full range of quality services; undertake regular annual customer satisfaction surveys to grasp and understand the needs of customers in order to further improve the services.
14.82%

rate of non-revenue water

 

940,000

m3/day

water supply capacity

 

2
million
people benefit from our water supply services