Valve Automation At Water Treatment Plants

Valve automation is growing in the municipal water market fueled by increasing regulations and cost savings. It’s particularly prevalent in reverse osmosis, UV, desalination and ultra-filtration plants where there is a high concentration of process valves and pneumatic actuation taking place.

In this Water Online Radio interview, Craig Correia, head of process automation for Festo, explains how valve automation has evolved. “If you go back 20 years, many water treatment plants used manual valves,” Correia states. “At 2am in the morning, a sensor would go off and somebody would drive to the plant or be at the plant to turn a valve on and off. Requirements today require instantaneous reaction, and that can only really be done with automation.”

Process automation also provides better data and improved diagnostics for equipment manufacturers. Festo’s solution allows a manufacturer to retrieve performance data over the Internet from their installed equipment around the globe. Air consumption, water flow, sensor health and the general performance on valves can all be monitored remotely.

This provides huge benefits for early diagnosis of problems to enable field service units to pinpoint problems before or as they occur and keep field service costs down. Many issues can be troubleshot remotely.

To learn more about preventative diagnostics and valve automation, click on the player below: