Hibiscus Coast Pump Station - Accelerated Delivery Reducing Cost and Carbon

Waldo Strydom (Watercare Services Ltd.), Gabrielle Ip (WSP)

As the water and wastewater supplier to 1.7 million Auckland residents and businesses, Watercare determined the need for a replacement Hibiscus Coast Water Pump Station (HBC PS) to provide resilience for population growth and peak summer demand in the Hibiscus Coast Area (north of Auckland).

This paper demonstrates an alternative and innovative delivery model which successfully accelerates the project by challenging conventional approaches while achieving efficiencies and savings.

Watercare faced delays with the acquisition of the preferred property resulting ina modular staged approach. This became a necessity to decouple the objectives by bringing 270 litres per second capacity online before summer peak demand. As a result, the immediate solution was completed within 5 months from detailed design to construction, and the final solution 12 months following. 

Immediate solution delivered a prepared site including: power and communications, the building slab, pipework to connect to both bulk mains, a single pump with a containerised control room. We estimate this was achieved in less than half the time of using a traditional approach. 

The unconventional delivery strategy challenged typical approaches to consenting, design, procurement, and construction to achieve the overall objective, while delivering to Watercare’s Enterprise Model 40:20:20 delivery objectives:
• reducing carbon in infrastructure by 40% by 2024,
• reducing the cost to deliver the infrastructure programme by 20% by 2024,
• improving the health, safety and well-being of all people involved in delivering our infrastructure by 20% year on year.

Accelerated delivery was achieved by identifying critical project outcomes and decoupling key programme activities. These included:
• Delivering key design functions by splitting work packages into an immediate and final solution. This allowed for staged design and early construction commencement and deferred lower priority activities across to a parallel programme.
• Designing within the permitted prescribed resource consenting activity limits reduced the programme by at least 3 months.
• Actively managing procurement of critical path equipment and reducing lead times by off-site manufacture. This included repurposing a spare pump; securing surplus pipework from a parallel project; procuring the offsite manufacture of a containerised control room.

Carbon was reduced by minimising the site footprint; a lightweight building structure and utilising surplus equipment.

Cost savings were achieved - despite the compressed programme - This was done by challenging traditional approaches; advancing from concept to detailed design and/or IFC; challenging design standards where appropriate; using surplus material and spare equipment no longer required by other projects / facilities, delivering a total 5% budget saving.

The compressed programme and off-site manufacture reduced onsite construction and the likelihood of lost time injuries.

The approach used in the Hibiscus Coast pump station project provides an alternative delivery foundation for other projects across New Zealand; whether in the construction of a pump station or meeting challenging construction deadlines. The highly collaborative, innovative and outcome focused approach is easily replicable to meet the forecast demand and resilience requirements, while navigating uncertainty associated with procurement and consenting delays, infrastructure decarbonisation and broader industry resource challenges.