Harnessing SCADA Systems for Enhanced Sewer Infrastructure Management

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems allow industrial systems to run smoothly and provide real-time insights to relevant parties. Wastewater SCADA equipment is increasingly common, especially since leaders want to save money, avoid failures and meet regulatory requirements. A goal-oriented mindset will maximize results if you are considering installing a SCADA system for water management.

Feed Wastewater SCADA Data Into a Digital Twin

Wastewater treatment plant upgrades are time, labor and money-intensive enhancements. Many leaders build digital twins of their facilities to test proposed changes before approving them. Then, they can determine the most effective ways to meet new needs before projects begin. That option is also useful when building new facilities. Digital twins enable examining single assets or facility areas or viewing representations of everything on a site.

They are also excellent troubleshooting resources. Perhaps a particular process has suddenly slowed or become more error-prone. The data from a digital twin reveals the various components potentially contributing to those issues.

Decision-makers may also choose digital twins to support their consistency goals. If one entity controls multiple wastewater facilities, SCADA data from all provides unprecedented visibility, pinpointing why certain locations meet goals more often than others.

Brazil’s largest private sanitation company built a digital twin to integrate previously siloed data into a single platform. That change improved leak detection, strengthened processes and facilitated asset management decisions. Besides ingesting SCADA data, a digital twin can include hydraulic modeling information, real-time equipment statuses, tank levels and more.

While planning your digital twin, begin by determining its scope. Next, evaluate the data that will go into the model. If quality concerns arise during this step, establish a system for putting information in the correct format, eliminating duplicate records and making the content as reliable as possible.

Since many employees may be unfamiliar with digital twins, explain how they work and support better SCADA data usage. Access control is another critical aspect since the digital twin contains many plant details. Create a process where people can only interact with its content if doing so relates to their role and tasks.

Improve Maintenance With a SCADA System for Water Management

Wastewater treatment plant decision-makers face increasing pressures to maintain productivity and high-quality results. One of their primary goals is to reduce equipment downtime. Such outages cause costly ripple effects that disrupt operations, upsetting customers and prompting potential regulatory scrutiny.

Malfunctioning equipment could prevent the company from meeting quality goals, posing risks to every water user. A well-planned SCADA system for water management reduces those risks. Complementary hardware and software customize the setup to meet wastewater clients’ needs.

Programmable logic controllers and human-machine interfaces commonly accompany supervisory control and data acquisition systems, making them more user-friendly and purposeful. 

Wastewater SCADA data aligns with a company’s maintenance goals, especially once leaders prioritize predictive approaches. People can monitor for and respond to anomalies before outages occur, resulting in many cost-saving opportunities. 

Sewage grinder pumps pulverize solid waste, moving it through narrow pipes. The equipment’s revolutions per minute determine how fast it works to prevent clogging and backups. Although commercial businesses such as hotels use grinder pumps before the waste moves to treatment plants, the end facilities often do as well to maintain trouble-free operations. The equipment complements bar screens, which filter out large, solid objects. 

Plant operators need such tiered approaches to reduce problems. A pump may need urgent attention if its speed slows or abnormal vibrations occur. SCADA systems support early fault detection of pumps or other assets. They track chemical concentrations, flow rates, pH levels and other specifics, providing immediate alerts when values are outside set parameters. Then, the responsible parties can act promptly, addressing issues before they cause widespread damage. 

Apply this option by considering which assets often fail or have the most severe consequences. Then, prioritize those when using SCADA to improve maintenance. 

Modernize Employees’ Tasks for Better Productivity 

Sewer infrastructure management employees must thrive in fast-paced environments and be open to learning new technologies. Installing a new SCADA system for water plant oversight substantially changes workloads.

These improvements support automation, eliminating or substantially removing the manual checks or steps workers once did throughout water treatment plants. In one case, a Northern California municipality budgeted for a new booster station that pulls liquid from a 300,000-gallon storage tank and sends it to households and fire hydrants.

The vessel connects to a control panel that receives a signal from the tank’s level transducer. Once the water is depleted to a certain level, a fill valve activates to replenish it at specific evening times. How does wastewater SCADA data fit into the system? People can remotely check the water amount and valve position through a linked system. This capability allows verifying everything is working correctly without physically visiting a site.

Another example involved a municipality in Western Switzerland deploying an inflow and infiltration (I&I) management system to monitor for problems continuously. The solution comprises a digital platform that uses SCADA and geographic information systems data and integrates it with hydrological, meteorological and asset information. 

The technology shows users where inflow and infiltration events occur within a wastewater network. Such insights are critical in areas with older infrastructure since it is a well-known cause of I&I problems. Similarly, heavy storms can exacerbate issues. 

Once water managers pinpoint events, they can use that information to send workers to affected areas, equipping them with everything needed to address the identified issues. Such systems help employees work more efficiently because they know what to expect upon arrival and do not need to travel to sites to see if an issue needs immediate attention. 

Enjoy Better Reporting Capabilities 

Wastewater SCADA technology saves people time by giving them faster access to reliable data. Supporting solutions allow visualizing that information or compiling it for detailed reports. Such details help people make more confident, informed decisions by seeing current statistics and how conditions have changed. 

Someone considering investing in a SCADA system for water reporting should calculate the estimated time spent on report creation in specific periods. Similarly, they should list the average number of internal and external parties receiving reports and the information in those documents. 

Environmental authorities often demand details about companies’ corrective actions to control pollution. Estimates suggest air stripping for nitrogen removal is up to 10 times less emissions-intensive than other methods. If regulators have identified greenhouse gas-related problems at wastewater plants, applying sustainable solutions to fix those issues shows genuine commitment from those who must improve. 

SCADA systems provide historical and real-time data to meet reporting obligations. Leaders can use that data to prove they have addressed problems and are gradually improving. 

Similarly, executives at wastewater plants with previous worker or consumer safety violations may need to specify the actions taken to prevent future dangers. Supervisory control and data acquisition systems capture the internal information that can highlight meaningful safety corrections. 

Since such setups also allow tracking trends and detecting problems earlier, wastewater leaders use them to be more proactive and address issues that could hinder growth or hurt the bottom line. Vast resources of accurate data allow executives to take appropriate actions at the correct times. 

SCADA Enhances Water Infrastructure

Let these examples inspire you during explorations and discussions about integrating SCADA technology into your wastewater plant. Knowing what has worked elsewhere makes finding suitable solutions for a facility easier.