Putting Climate at the Heart of Water Treatment - Aqua Metrology, CEO, Rick Bacon

Interview with Evoqua

Snehal Desai

Executive Vice President Chief Growth and Sustainability Officer Evoqua

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Evoqua Water Technologies (Evoqua) is a leading provider of mission-critical water and wastewater treatment solutions, offering a broad portfolio of products, services, and expertise to support industrial, municipal and recreational customers who value water.

Climate change is water change. Do you agree? Water is one of the primary mediums through which we will feel the effects of climate change through less predictable water availability, increased flooding, and water scarcity. There is also a lack of infrastructure built to withstand the water stresses we are witnessing and will see in the future. Additionally, our traditional sources of water may not be sufficient. We will have to develop more flexible means of reusing water. This will require more energy-efficient solutions, renewable energy, and circular waste streams.

How do you think climate change will impact your business? Evoqua is dedicated to developing and delivering solutions that help customers and communities protect the world's most valuable resource. With the urgent need to do more about climate change and the increasing water risk facing our customers’ facilities, we expect to see investments in water systems increase and more companies establish sustainability goals tied to their water footprint.

What water technologies do you currently use? At Evoqua, we work daily to build a more sustainable, healthy, and safe water system by providing various water treatment solutions to communities, companies, and organisations worldwide. Key offerings from Evoqua include: clarification, contaminant removal, disinfection, electrochlorination, filtration, recycle/ reuse, separation, waste-to-energy, and wastewater treatment. What are some of the barriers to the adoption of your technology? Are there any barriers? We hear from our customers that they are challenged with establishing the business case for change. They recognise there are opportunities, whether it be an economic return on investment or their environmental impact. Being able to properly scope and scale the available solutions is becoming a primary topic of interest.

Do you think your clients are adequately considering climate change adaptation in their business strategies?

You would be hard-pressed to find an industry not reliant on a stable water supply, whether used to power that enterprise, required to feed its supply chain, or instrumental in creating a product itself. We find many customers are at different stages in their sustainability journey in how they are integrating resilience and adaptation. Fortunately, we have solutions to help them at every step of the way. What does a ‘water positive’ future look like to ‘‘ You would be hard-pressed to find an industry not reliant on a stable water supply you?

Water positive is having the quantity and quality of water needed for all. This can be achieved through water efficiency, reuse, and recycling initiatives, but it also needs to include a holistic watershed approach. If we look at communities, industries, municipalities, the natural environment, and more, we can see that this approach is necessary to have an impact on water quality and quantity.

Interview with Bentley Systems

Andrea DuMont

Product Portfolio Manager Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems is an infrastructure engineering software company providing solutions for the design, construction, and operations of water and wastewater, public works and utilities, roads and bridges, rail and transit, buildings and campuses, mining, and industrial facilities.

Climate change is water change. Do you agree? Climate change will most directly be felt as water change. UNICEF reports that 74% of all natural disasters were water related. But extreme weather isn’t the only water-related problem we’re Facing. Climate change-induced water stress will cause ripple effects across global supply chains, many different demographics and all socio-economic classes.

‘‘ Marginalised communities will feel the full financial and social impacts of water change.

How does your water solution help us prepare for an uncertain water future? Bentley provides powerful solutions spanning the many degrees of water-related changes. We’re using digitalisation and access to technology to make it more reliable for users, transparent to communities, and adaptable to change.

We’re proud to offer solutions to design and operate more resilient water systems, assess flood risks, and monitor dam safety. Another important initiative for us is to help marginalised communities, who will feel the full financial and social impacts of water change.

Do you think your clients are adequately considering climate change adaptation in their business strategies? We’ve seen many large utilities begin to consider climate in their business plans. But what’s great about Bentley technology is that even if a project’s focus is not directly stated as ‘climate change adaptation’, the utilisation of more advanced monitoring and operations means they’ll have the tools they need to be more resilient in times of chronic AND emergency shocks and stressors.

What role should the government play in promoting climate adaptation tech? Some governments have begun to promote climate adaptation and those are the communities that are able to fund specific strategies for resilience.

It’s well-known that $1 of preparation saves $6 of emergency work. For governments that have placed mandates on utilities, they’re more likely to save money after a climatic event.

There are also some examples in the UK and Australia of how government initiatives to build infrastructure more equitably have helped to prepare vulnerable communities by measurable value in what is known as the social return on investment.

If you could make one type of water innovation mainstream overnight, which would it be? Incremental innovations are often just as important as big, disruptive changes. In the case of water and climate adaptation, we will need both to prepare our communities for the future.

A big topic right now is the One Water philosophy - the understanding that all the earth’s water is interconnected. If we can change the public mindset then we can begin to reuse and adapt water technologies to more efficiently suit the needs for humans and ecosystems.

The ability to have real-time monitoring across the water distribution network, all the way from the water source to individual customers. Being able to quickly detect events such as leaks, pipe breaks, energy wastage, water quality issues and immediately respond to them - saving water, energy, money and lives.

How tech is helping water utilities answer the big four sustainability challenges

By Greg Moyle, Head of Energy at SAP UK & Ireland

The UN’s High-Level Climate Champions for Climate Action aims to fully decarbonise water and wastewater services in 20 countries by 2030. Not only is achieving net zero an imperative for water utility companies to ensure the future of this planet and this essential natural resource, but it’s now a key expectation of customers and regulators alike. Alongside the sustainability challenge, water companies are also facing uncertainty over demand and population growth, environmental instability and water scarcity.

With these competing priorities, water suppliers face multifaceted issues which can make hitting net zero seem an insurmountable challenge. Yet according to research, in comparison to other industries, utility executives lead the way in sustainability action within their organisations. However, half also say that increased process complexity is standing in the way of meeting their sustainability targets. As a result, many are turning to technology to help to solve this complicated matrix. Water is an industry keen to innovate; players within this space are more advanced than those in other industries in adopting technology. In fact, almost half use big data and the cloud to power operations versus approximately a third in other industries.

Here we explore how these technologies are powering success for water companies across the four key sustainable challenges.

Challenge One:

Decarbonisation and reducing emissions

Under pressure to meet ambitious sustainability targets, many water companies have started to make progress by recognising the need to be held accountable and to reduce harmful gases. For instance, Water UK has found that the UK’s water industry uses 2% of national energy consumption but produces one-third of total national Greenhouse Gases from its operations. Fundamentally, this is a key barrier to meeting net zero.

Reducing emissions is therefore a market priority, and with OFWAT introducing mandatory reporting of emissions, it has become essential to digitalise systems to monitor usage effectively.

Increasingly, water companies are turning to remote monitoring and real-time data analysis to aid energy optimisation and reduce consumption. Through enhanced analytics, powered by IoT sensors and the cloud, water companies can collect and read vast amounts of data in real-time. Not only does this support overall measurement of consumption but it helps to forecast usage, which means that utilities can better identify where to optimise their output and reduce their footprint.

However, it is not enough to reduce energy use; the energy itself needs to come from renewable sources. Through the cloud and big data, utility companies can analyse their service and the supply chain to make more accurate, informed choices on where nonrenewables are present, and seek ways to convert to greener alternatives.

Challenge Two:

Non-revenue water and leakage

It is estimated that non-revenue water (NRW) has reached over 126 billion cubic meters per year - a staggering loss in a world where water scarcity is a very real issue. As a result, water utilities must look to promote a range of water-saving initiatives and continuously monitor for and control leaks across the network.

While NRW is a constant thorn in the side of utility companies, it is another area where IoT sensors, the cloud and advanced analytics are paving the way for a more sustainable future.

Smart water solutions, incorporating real-time network monitoring, can identify water loss incidents. While predictive asset insight makes it possible to identify operational inefficiencies, instantly detect repair issues, and even predict maintenance needs before problems arise.

In this sense, digital transformation can act as an early warning system, reducing non-revenue water and providing invaluable data on the network’s health, feeding into broader analysis that can support sustainable goals. What’s more, water companies no longer need to tolerate the often expensive, slow hardware associated with legacy processes. Instead, IoT sensors and the cloud can support a cost-efficient business model while powering scalable insights from rich data sets.