Irrigation pump stations and water features across Al Ain parks

About this project

Al Ain has been building and rebuilding parks steadily, and the irrigation pumping behind them is released to site in packages rather than all at once. Almafor has been supplying the pump station automation across several of those packages, at Al Qua'a, Al Khabeesi and the Al Jahili, Al Mitrid and Muwaiji group, with further parks at Al Madif, Al Maqam, Al Moraiji and Fela Hala following as their information is confirmed.

This is a rolling programme rather than a single contract, and some stations are complete while others are still in engineering. Al Qua'a and Al Khabeesi were the first through, with panels delivered and instrumentation installed.

Each station takes an MCC with variable frequency drives for the irrigation pumps and a separate PLC and RTU panel with a local touch screen HMI. Several parks also have water features, which are quoted and built as their own control package because they run on a different schedule from irrigation and there is no benefit in coupling them.

Enclosure choice is one of the few decisions that genuinely varies station to station. Where the panel sits inside a pump room it is sheet steel. Where it stands outdoors it is GRP, because in Al Ain an outdoor steel enclosure is a corrosion and heat problem rather than a cost saving. On this programme that split ran to six sheet steel panels and three GRP.

Material submittals go through the consultant against the municipal circular listing approved manufacturers and suppliers, which constrains component selection before any design work starts. Working to that list from the first submittal rather than arguing for an alternative later is what keeps approval from becoming the critical path.

Because the parks are released one at a time, the panels are built to a common design and then adjusted per station. That keeps the approved submittal reusable, keeps spares interchangeable across the parks, and means each new station is a short repeat rather than a fresh design.