Our Story
On a Friday afternoon in the fall of 2010, a Central Texas water utility manager phoned Perry and posed this question: “We installed variable frequency drives at our main pump station. So, what’s the best speed to run these pumps?” This is an obvious question for anyone with pumps and VFDS. Here’s another one: “Does the combination of pumps and speeds really matter, so long as the desired flow is achieved?” Perry went online to look for possible solutions and was shocked to find that there simply were not any. So, he assembled a team of engineers and computer scientists to develop the technology that would answer these questions. Specific Energy was founded. That first pump station in Central Texas is still using Specific Energy. Through our experience at that first pump station, we discovered that the proper combination of pumps and speeds matters a lot. This station reduced its annual energy spent by 28% for the same pumping volume, and the pumps at this station have seen very little wear over the past five years. Dashboards do matter.
