Load Changes
Many municipal water utilities encounter large water-consumption rates early in the morning as people prepare to go to work or school, and then again in the evening as people arrive home, prepare meals, wash dishes, flush toilets, bathe or shower, or do a load of wash. Later, water consumption returns to a low level. Using the boosters during peak hours would be prohibitively expensive. To counteract that phenomenon, booster pumps are used during off-peak hours at a lower electrical rate to pump the water into elevated water towers to supply the required pressure by merit of their higher liquid head. When high demand resumes, the elevated water is released from the towers until the demand period is over, and the process of filling them again during off-peak times is repeated.