Stratus What New Technologies Can Do For Water Industry - Whitepaper
WHAT NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND DATA CAN DO FOR THE WATER INDUSTRY
Increase Quality and Safety of Products, and Improve Performance with New Technologies and Continuous Availability
®
simplify and modernize automation
CHALLENGES THE WATER INDUSTRY IS FACING
SCARCITY OF RESOURCES: CREATING OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES IN THE WATER INDUSTRY TODAY
ISSUES
More and more the water industry is operating in a world of increasingly scarcer resources — not just the perennial funding problems, but the lack of trained staff and the challenge of providing sufficient clean water. As demand for water increases and droughts are beginning to affect water supply in many areas, it’s becoming even more challenging and expensive to supply quality water in a cost efficient manner. For years, the combination of aging infrastructure and constrained funding have been increasing pressure on public works managers and decision makers at water and wastewater facilities. At the same time - for water managers - the main objectives are still the same: guaranteeing water safety and quality, avoiding service interruptions and dealing with the funding shortfalls. Thus, water industry managers continue to be challenged with figuring out how to do more with less.
These operational challenges are very similar to the broader industrial sector: achieving operational efficiencies while managing capital cost. Тhe industry is edging closer to the limits of its infrastructure and the funding and cost concerns are getting larger. Increasing the resilience of assets that are operating well past their designed lifespan, while reducing or eliminating water loss, is an ongoing challenge that needs to be managed in new ways. And the keys to better operational decisions and increased efficiencies lie in updated industrial automation systems. Water and water treatment facilities need future-proof, cost-effective new technologies and new sources of data — from new purification technologies to sensors, IIoT, new data analytics solutions as well as monitoring applications.
WATER UTILITIES CAN MAKE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES THAT SOLVE BOTH DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONAL PROBLEMS AS WELL AS MINIMIZE IT/OT CAPITAL COSTS
NEW TECHNOLOGIES:
Distributed infrastructure monitoring
Smart meters
IIoT and sensors
Upgraded operational technology
Data processing, reporting and analytics
PROCESSES THAT BENEFIT FROM NEW DATA SOURCES AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Water supply monitoring
Water planning
Conservation
Leakage and
outage prevention
Prevention and alerting
Quality and safety management
OPPORTUNITIES MADE POSSIBLE WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY
Safety and quality control
Increased operational efficiencies
Uninterrupted process monitoring
New data collection and processing
New methods and automated techniques
Water quality surveillance and response systems
AMONG THE SCARCITY OF RESOURCES THERE IS ALSO AN ABUNDANCE OF:
ABUNDANCE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS, DATA SOURCES AND REGULATORY SCRUTINY
In this world of scarcer resources, there are several things that are becoming more abundant:
• The public’s and regulators’ scrutiny over quality and safety
• New technologies across the value chain and all aspects of operations
• New data sources and analytical capabilities enable real-time monitoring, issue alerting, forecasting and operational decisions
New technologies and data provide actionable insights through sensors, IoT, Data and Analytics to:
• Replace labor-intensive meter reading through smart meters
• Prevent lost revenue due to inaccurate consumption measurement through anomaly detection and minimize resource and revenue leaks (e.g. $2.5B annual cost of main breaks in the US*)
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Many water and waste water control systems run on aging hardware with outdated and often unsupported or costly to support operating systems. Updates are badly needed in order to support current and future applications.
Minimize the impact of an aging workforce by automating and simplifying processes with modernized systems at lower capital cost and lowest overall TCO.
• Eliminate costly reactive services due to the lack of visibility into distribution, collection, and consumption patterns through uninterrupted, real-time data collection
• Identify potential asset failures and accelerate repairs through the use of predictive analytics
New technologies and data deliver cost-effective, efficient processes
NEW OPPORTUNITIES TO DRIVE IMPROVEMENTS
It’s hard to make sense of all the new technology, separate the hype from the reality and make the right decisions about which technologies to adopt. While making these decisions, there is always the prominent need to provide financial justification and the lowest TCO for all investment cases.
To enable these new technologies, water plants need modernized operational technology. They need a simple to operate, cost-effective, future-ready computing infrastructure that guarantees uninterrupted operation and data capture.
A number of new technologies are available today to help water utilities address their operational challenges:
• Data and monitoring required to ensure safety and compliance
— Interruptions in data collection or data loss may result in safety risks or non-compliance (physical security of water supply and safety to consume, e.g. from monitoring to loss of testing data)
Data and monitoring are required to ensure safety & compliance
• New technologies to ensure water availability — Using sensors, remote monitoring and IIoT solutions for data accumulation and monitoring of the collection and distribution networks enables significant efficiencies
• Connecting and remotely monitoring widely distributed systems and infrastructure — Sensor data analytics, IIoT and connected systems offer opportunities to modernize water systems. Efficient monitoring of distribution system results in more efficient asset operation and maintenance, including predictive maintenance
• Newer practices, techniques and devices available to achieve higher goals for water conservation and efficiency — New practices, techniques and devices are now available. These newer processes and advanced wastewater reuse technologies and techniques — advancement in membrane technologies, use of micro, ultra, nano filtration, treatment by reverse and forward osmosis and electro dialysis — are dependent on upgraded operational technology and hardware, data and system monitoring
THE ABUNDANCE OF NEW DATA IN THE WATER SECTOR
New data supply and sources for improved performance
On-site technologies have emerged including hi-res water quality sensors and automated meter networks
Remote sensing and on-theground technologies, along with the widespread adoption of geospatial analysis, have increased the sector’s capacity to quantify and monitor water supplies and fluxes over large spatial scales; These technologies also increase the speed with which data is collected.
The volume of data the water sector collects has increased dramatically in recent years:
Chemical concentration and laboratory data
Water supply metering and customer usage data
Engineering and construction data
Asset performance and maintenance data (no leakage/lost product)
THE DATA CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE WATER SECTOR
Data-Supported Decisions and Monitoring
$14B IN MISSED REVENUE GLOBALLY*
• Missed revenue opportunities due to inaccurate consumption measurement
• 30%-50% water losses in urban areas not uncommon**
• Only 4% losses for the best performers
• 10%+ reduced water usage in cities where smart water metering has been implemented*
Monitor water quality
Map and monitor physical infrastructure and systems.
• Responding to water utilities lack of resources and staff to support complex systems
• Ensuring automated fault and leak management
• Addressing the dire need for low cost inspection and repair solutions and optimal instrumentation and controls across the water network NEED FOR
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
MAXIMIZE EFFICIENCIES AND PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH SIMPLIFIED AND MODERNIZED AUTOMATION.
ENABLE THE UNINTERRUPTED COLLECTION, PROCESSING, ANALYSIS AND REPORTING OF MULTIPLE DATA SOURCES.
DRIVE VISIBILITY, RAPID RESPONSE AND FORECASTING WHILE ENSURING SAFETY AND EFFICIENCIES.
Stratus takes the complexity out of keeping business critical applications running 24/7. Our technologies proactively prevent instances of unplanned downtime both in the data center and at the edge, and our services ensure any issues are addressed before our customers need to.
Global Fortune 500 companies and small medium sized businesses in a wide range of industries across the globe have been relying on Stratus for operationally simple, continuous availability for more than 35 years.
