In water and wastewater operations, optimizing energy use plays a huge role in cost efficiency, but how can you know if pumping equipment and other motors are running as efficiently as possible? Analytics systems that interpret performance from a variety of data points — pump curves, run time, flow rates, vibration, temperature, energy consumption, etc. — can quantify pump operation to keep performance efficiency on an upward track.
In today’s competitive business environment, which focuses on increased throughput, economies of scale and a healthy bottom line, accurate and reliable measurement is a key component. Monitoring production processes by installing a wide range of sensors including flow, level, temperature, and pressure is common and crucial to be competitive. Although there are many reasons why plant managers decide to install monitoring devices in their process, environmental and regulatory reasons dominate one side of the spectrum, whereas quality, process control and monitoring govern the other.
Combined and sanitary sewer overflows are natural hazards for wastewater collection systems. Without a comprehensive solution to monitor troublesome conditions, overflows can be triggered with little warning and lead to expensive and embarrassing situations. Fortunately, versatile analytical systems that capitalize on existing wastewater collection infrastructure hold promise for avoiding such negative impacts.
Knowing that aeration requirements consume 50 to 60 percent of a wastewater treatment plant's (WWTP) energy bill is one thing. Knowing exactly how and when to tweak aeration output to optimize activated sludge process efficiency with minimal energy waste is an entirely different story. Here are several key considerations on using precise air-flow measurement to reach that sweet spot with greater consistency and cost-efficiency.
With the proliferation of new sensors and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) initiatives now feeding SCADA systems, water industry managers lament how they are drowning in a sea of data yet starving for insights that really matter. With concepts like data democratization starting to bear fruit, advanced analytical capabilities are creating new opportunities for water insights without requiring a degree in computer science.
Understaffing, upcoming retirements, and finding qualified replacements seem to be recurring themes in the water industry. Perhaps the answers are as much about the tools we use as the people using them. Here is how a new approach to utility data management can capture the knowledge of retiring workers, share the insight across all disciplines, and shore up the skills and interests of the next generation.
The more a water utility knows about its current operations, the better equipped it can be to make more informed decisions about upcoming maintenance and capital replacement programs. Here are several key approaches to identifying cost-effective ways to make merging historical asset data and current operational data as the next step toward building a stronger, more resilient utility.
In many water industry applications, a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system is considered the heartbeat of the operation. As a result, many data management decisions revolve around what the SCADA system can or cannot do and how big of a deal and expense it is to change. Can’t there be a way to devise more ROI-responsive data solutions, without having to change SCADA solutions?
For all the talk about scarcity of source water, funding, and the next-generation labor pool in the water industry, there is one area that is not falling short — data collection. Here is how water and sewer districts inundated with data collected from a variety of central control systems, pressure loggers, and stand-alone sensors can streamline and manage that flood of data in ways that cut their major concerns down to size.
Texas is sizable enough to be a large country on its own, with an economy to match, and is also proudly unique. But when it comes to water issues, the Lone Star State shares a lot in common with the rest of America: overwhelmed and vulnerable infrastructure, threats to water quality and security, and competition for resources.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|