Water & Wastewater Treatment

www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | FEBRUARY 2015 | 35 age and rainfall capture, reducing the need for back-pumping and the risk of serious ooding. Smart technology will allow the parts of the water cycle to be run in a more integrated way enabling better decisions to be made based on real-time data. Questions such as when should water be drawn from a groundwater source or a river based on aquifer levels, demand and weather patterns? When is the best time to discharge treated e• uent to a river based on its ow rates and quality? What is the sludge solids inventory in holding tanks and what the optimal collection route? What is the e• ect of pump op- eration in pressurised water networks? What is the optimum storage level in a service reservoir? Can a pump sta- tion and its service reservoir be used for load balancing and energy storage in conjunction with a smart grid? Yes it can! It will also provide a great example of the integration of electric- ity and water networks which will deliver exciting prospects for cost and resource saving. A system that can pre- dict local oods could help ood-prone communities prepare for and maybe even prevent catastrophic events, and many more. One of the most exciting applica- tions driven by IoT will be in … eld service, which will evolve from reactive to preventative maintenance, based on actual condition of the plant and equipment. A supplier of specialist packaged treatment plant will be able to gain a much better understanding of utilisation of their equipment and o• er a lifetime optimisation service, match- ing capacity to load thereby increasing reliability and availability. The supplier will gain a much better understanding of how the plant is operating, has an on-going customer relationship and a new service revenue stream. A particularly interesting aspect of IoT is a concept which Aquamatix refers to as 'Connected Know-how', which involves replacing the declining expertise available at treatment plants and networks with smart devices. The domain expert's experience is used to classify and codify a set of operating models for a particular type of asset or process, for example, disinfection. The knowledge is captured and structured using information model- ling techniques to create datamodels, which are implemented in the smart edge device. When the process is operating under normal conditions, no intervention is necessary, the intel- ligent system is in control. However, as soon as the process deviates outside its de… ned envelope, the expert can be quickly connected to the process, wherever he or she happens to be in the world, to determine corrective ac- tion and intervention. The IoT will deliver practical, real- time asset management, providing the ability to optimise use of abstraction licences, boreholes, pumps, reservoirs, pipe networks, sewers, treatment plant and discharge licences to ensure lowest cost and most e• ective service to customers. It will allow systems and plant to be run closer to their limits of capacity, condition and energy eŠ ciency. Far too oŒ en, the smart water debate focusses on the customer meter, but in a world of IoT, this is only the tip of the iceberg. The real value will come from truly sweating the con- nected assets within a measured and dynamically managed risk pro… le. About the author Laurie Reynolds is the managing direc- tor of AquamatiX, a company specialising in the Internet of Things for the water industry. He is a chartered engineer with over 35 years of experience in control systems and au- tomation in the water industy. "The current perception of 'drowning in data' will change to the right data, the right context, the right time." Laurie Reynolds, AquamatiX Ž Comparison of SCADA and IoT Scada •Technology focus •Proprietary •Closed •Hierarchical •Point-based protocols •Good for process control •Diffi cult to integrate with legacy IoT •Data focus •Multi-vendor •Open standards •Networks & high scalability •Object-based data models •Good for distributed intel- ligence • Strong enterprise integration with web and legacy system A wireless network can be used across the urban water cycle

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