Flushing Out Wastewater Woes with IoT

Despite the challenging environment, wastewater is an area where having the right data is critical for ongoing understanding and savings of the entire network. Kallipr is at the cutting edge of IoT technology that can support wastewater managers.

The role of Internet of Things (IoT) devices is growing in the lives of Australians and people around the world. The industrial IoT (IIoT) market is also growing rapidly, with one report suggesting that the IIoT market worldwide could grow by nearly 14 per cent per year to over US$450 billion by 2029.

The uptake of smart devices across different industry sectors has been rapid in the water industry. IIoT offers numerous opportunities to transform wastewater management and treatment systems while providing local councils with previously unknown insights.

Kallipr has worked in the water and wastewater fields for many years. The success of its project with Sydney Water is a testament to the quality of devices and services provided for a wastewater solution.

Alex Sims is the Technical Support Lead for Kallipr and has been working on wireless technology for several years. As an electrician, he has an excellent understanding of the challenges at both the physical and data levels for devices entering wastewater systems.

“Wastewater is a really complex asset,” Sims said. “There is so much variance across the network. To start with, there are significant age discrepancies across the network. For example, you could find a network over 100 years old connected to one just a year or two old. That’s before you start looking at the unpleasantness of the situation in terms of what it is carrying around.”

Local government challenges

Because no two sites are the same, this creates challenges for any company, water utility, or local government organisation. Financial issues are also present.

“Wastewater networks present challenges for any organisation, regardless of size,” said Sims. “Even the largest utilities in metropolitan areas face resource constraints when managing their networks. In metropolitan settings, the proximity of assets and maintenance holes makes monitoring and maintaining the system easier. However, the task becomes significantly more challenging in regional areas, where assets are spread across vast distances.”

With fewer resources, smaller local governments often find it harder to keep up with the demands of managing these dispersed networks effectively. That’s why presenting the right solutions to local government can be critical.

“There are many different sensors for different purposes,” he said. “There are contact sensors, like float switches and submersible level sensors. They can be deployed to monitor things like surcharge alarms and water levels. There are also non-contact sensors that use radar and ultrasonic technology. These are designed to be deployed in sewers and monitor water levels.”

Sensors that measure turbidity, dissolved oxygen, chlorine, fluoride, and a range of other water quality monitoring issues are also included. Each of these solutions needs to be built to withstand the environments in which they will be installed. They also need to transmit the data in a timely and ‘on-demand’ manner while maintaining its accuracy.

Cost of inaction

Local councils manage an array of aging assets that lack end-to-end visibility, which creates enormous challenges. Kallipr encourages the digitisation of the network, as the cost of inaction can far outweigh the initial investment.

“We’ve had councils concerned about the cost of installing an IIoT system into their area,” Sims said. “Understanding the potential for proactive maintenance is key. The cost of an IoT solution is far outweighed by its opportunities for reducing operational expenditure. In every trial we’ve conducted, the business case has stacked up, demonstrating the clear ROI and appetite for these solutions.

Local governments will often see the benefits of improved maintenance and network management by reviewing the potential cost savings from improved maintenance and network management, such as a reduction in truck rolls, prevention of sewer overflows, and reduced EPA fines. The International Data Corporation reported that operational expenditures can be four times higher than capital expenditures, on average.

“The upfront capital expenditure will be a fraction of the overall cost through the solution’s lifetime,” said Sims. “Ultimately, the return on investment is positive due to improved business operations management. These solutions are becoming increasingly accessible as the IIoT market expands.”

Learning from sensors

A simple float switch deployment can provide an immense array of data for local government. It also helps with both predictive and proactive activities to ensure that residents are not negatively impacted by work done on the network.

“With the right sensor solution, the costs of managing the wastewater network can drop,” Sims said. “It also allows the local government to schedule its works based on the data coming in. That’s much better than taking a reactive approach, which tends to cost more money. Staff deal with the job during business hours if work is planned and scheduled. That’s an immediate financial and workforce management improvement compared to reacting to an emergency.”

An example of these learnings came from the hyper-scale rollout of Captis devices across Sydney Water’s network. Over 8,000 devices were initially rolled out to proactively manage sewage overflows through localised monitoring of sewer risers. It enabled Sydney Water to identify issues before an overflow event occurred. Following the trial’s success, Sydney Water is scaling to add an additional 15,000 Captis devices across its network, having saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in incident costs by detecting blockages.

“We also worked with the City of Gold Coast to track saltwater ingress,” said Sims. While tracking salinity might seem simple enough, all that seawater was winding up in treatment plants. Treating unwanted seawater costs money, so providing the council with more data to identify and resolve ingress issues would be a significant cost saving. It was also an opportunity to pinpoint exactly where maintenance needs to occur.”

With the future of IIoT continuing to be bright, Kallipr will remain a key solutions provider for years to come.

“Utilities and local government will continue to adopt this technology,” Sims said. “The improvements across a business and the cost savings are undeniable. Having that real-time behavioural data from a wastewater network can inform future proofing and town planning. The opportunities are endless.”

This article first appeared in Inside Water magazine.