Managing Water Supply and Demand with Innovative MES Software

Transcription

1 Managing Water Supply and Demand with Innovative MES Software An Industry White Paper By Peter Bouchard, Product Marketing Manager, Aspen Technology, Inc.

2 Introduction According to the World Bank, 1.1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean water. Similarly, wastewater regulations and environmental policies have resulted in higher treatment and disposal costs. Placing an accurate value on water and wastewater continues to plague state and local governments as industry and households have grown accustom to secure, uninterrupted supplies and treatment at a relatively inexpensive price. The inability to accurately place a true value on water has resulted in a lack of available funding for upkeep on aging infrastructure. Water and wastewater utilities are now utilizing mainstream technologies, such as manufacturing and execution systems (MES) in an effort to compile, analyze, and define new operational and business protocols. Current Problem: Funding The lack of available funding has placed many water and wastewater municipalities in a reactionary operating model. Rather than proactively mapping long-term investment requirements, they are tasked with shortterm fixes to secure supply. In countries where the water infrastructure has been in existence for more than a century (e.g., United States and Europe) replacing broken assets such as pipes is done on an as-needed basis, typically when the pipe breaks. These reactive responses have resulted in higher operating costs and ineffective long-term capital planning. According to the World Bank, water loss (sometimes referred to as Non-Revenue Water), can amount to $14 billion worldwide. Greenfield water projects the area where new infrastructure is coming online because of industrial expansion and population growth require utilities to run efficient operations from day one. Reuse and smart water management are critical for nations where water supplies are limited. In nations like Brazil, governments have asked industry to develop reuse schemes so that supplies keep up with industrial and domestic demand. Monitoring the performance of new water and wastewater assets is critical from a financial perspective. Furthermore, utilities need to understand how infrastructure expansion impacts their cost base and operating requirements. In drought-prone areas of the world, where large populations are reliant on clean water, government intervention has resulted in conservation practices. These practices can take the form of a sliding scale pricing structure, where consumers are taxed for excess water use. Governments are also asking utilities to implement drought mitigation strategies where data from water supplies can be tied to hydrological and meteorological cycles to ensure a consistent supply. Whether it is aging infrastructure, greenfield expansion, or government policies, the development of smart water networks is critical. An analysis of data using robust manufacturing and execution systems and modeling scenarios has resulted in a paradigm shift in how water is managed. 2

3 Financing for Technology Although everyone is in agreement that clean, safe water and wastewater treatments are critical, funding for new and existing technologies to monitor and manage water infrastructure has resulted in governments relying on a variety of creative partnerships and financing between public and private industry. Measuring water infrastructure and operational asset performance is now becoming more mainstream. According to Christopher Gasson, publisher of Global Water Intelligence, Most utilities know shockingly little about their networks but there is a feeling that you can t manage what you can t measure, so where money is available, it is going in that direction. Another detail Gasson mentions relates to the financial aspect for water infrastructure and supporting data systems, where he claims, Investor-owned utilities who can convince their investors may see manufacturing executions systems and modeling software as a wise spend. For example, Northern Europeans who charge enough for their water to cover the depreciation of their assets are always on the lookout for innovations that either improves productivity or customer service. For those financing in the public sector for new MES systems, according to Gasson, it depends on whether the utility is making money or losing it. If they make money, as they tend to in Germany or Denmark, then data systems are attractive because they improve productivity. In places such as Italy, where utilities lose money, any spending is bad due to many other inefficiencies that deserve expenditure. In the newer contract-ops private utilities, where the city picks up the capex, manufacturing execution systems are popular because they give people performance indicators. Performance-based contracts that tackle particular KPIs are becoming more mainstream. For example, water service contracts such as Veolia in New York and Suez in Algeria are setting the stage for MES suppliers because this is where KPIs originate from 1. Regardless of the financing model, more utilities are trying to proactively plan where and when to make investments. Measuring, monitoring, and integrating business data with operational assets is critical. Automation and control, information, and communication systems are the foundation for these data-driven decisions. Knowledge from Industry Leaders As industries migrate to smart water networks, they have adopted technologies that are widely deployed by the carbonbased liquid processing industries. Global, leading-edge chemical and oil companies rely on robust MES and supply chain software to manage their manufacturing network. These industries understand the cost of not monitoring, analyzing, and streamlining operational assets using data. A well-deployed MES strategy can reduce catastrophic events, from plant safety to environmental compliance to supply of critical raw materials. Taking full advantage of a well-deployed MES system has allowed these companies to drive profitability, improve efficiencies, and tackle complex business challenges. 3

4 The Water Sector With the global water market estimated at $360 billion, industrial companies whose businesses have thrived in traditional chemical and oil industries are now realizing that their product portfolios have a strong play in the water sector, including companies in equipment, instruments, services, and software. In short, the water and wastewater sector has become a large business. For example, in 2011, ITT Corporation spun off the formation of Xylem, a multi-billion dollar standalone company focused on providing equipment and services to water and wastewater treatment. Large players, such as Veolia, have begun to develop comprehensive energy management, water loss, and smart network services. In North America, Veolia is working with cities including New York, St Louis, Rialto, and Pittsburgh to utilize KPIs as part of their service 2. Leading-edge engineering software companies, such as Aspen Technology, are being pulled into the water market by E&C firms, system integrators, and municipalities. As a trusted supplier of process optimization software for the industrial sector, water utilities are deploying AspenTech s product portfolio for streamlining their operations. AspenTech s industry-leading MES software, aspenone MES, has been deployed at some of the largest water and wastewater infrastructures in the world. Water Resources For water utilities, a well-implemented MES system affords them the ability to convert raw data into valuable operating and business information. Municipalities can now view all their assets performance, from source waters to pipe networks through to final wastewater treatment. From a single operational center, critical control and command over facilities can be accomplished. Using remote mobile devices, utilities can view plant data any time from anyplace. Easy access to critical data affords utilities the ability to quickly respond to disruptions, measure key performance indicators (KPIs) against financial goals, and present themselves to local authorities as a safe, state-of-theart water resource. For example, one municipal water system in an arid region prone to seasonal droughts, such as Madrid, Spain, utilize the aspenone MES system to secure water supplies for more than 6 million residents. Data from this water network are shown in Table 1 below. Integrating a water network and compiling data from 177 municipalities, 139 waste treatment plants, dams, groundwater fields, pumping stations, reservoirs, and piping allows the water authority to manage the entire water cycle 3. Drought scenarios brought on by depleting reservoirs, seasonal climate changes, or as a result of broken assets can be proactively managed. The water authority is the first in Europe to implement a tariff-based pricing strategy for its customers, whereby water prices during a drought increase based on the amount consumed (pay more if you use more) 4. The implementation of this sliding scale pricing structure has also brought social awareness to the general population with regard to water conservation practices. 4

5 Water services to 6.3 million people 5 : 179 municipalities 270 service reservoirs 80 pumping stations Sewerage network km long 77 wells: up to 80 hm3/year Distribution network km long 150 wastewater treatment plants 13 water treatment plants: up to 46 m3/s 7 hydroelectric power stations: 40 Mw 14 reservoirs: 946 hm3 maximum storage capacity 7 water recycling plants: up to 3,6 hm3/year Sludge processing and power generation plant: 19 Mw Table 1: Compiled Data from the integrated water network in Madrid, Spain Energy management programs can be put into place by benchmarking unit operations year-over-year or site-by-site. Utilities can provide E&C firms and equipment vendors with energy targets for the next generation of product roadmaps. High-energy operations, such as membrane bioreactors for wastewater or seawater reverse osmosis systems, can now be tracked, measured, and compared. Utilities can evaluate energy consumption, operating performance, and overall equipment effectiveness by piloting next-generation equipment before making capital purchases. Conclusion Although the motivation for water management is founded in geographical, social, and political environments, the outcome is the same managing water supply and demand is complex. With aspenone MES software, utilities are now streamlining their operations and have the ability to convert raw data into valuable information that supports faster, smarter engineering, operational, and business decision making. References 1,2. Gasson, Christopher, Global Water Intelligence GWI January 2013: pg. 5 3,5. Fernández, Javier, AspenTech s User Conference 2011 Washington DC, Using VMWare to Deploy IP.21 for Full Water Cycle Supervision 4. Velez, Carlos E., Yee-Batista, Carmen, and Eiseman, Elizabeth H., LCSUW TURNING LATIN AMERICA S WATER UTILITIES GREEN: LESSONS FROM SPAIN, 2011: pg. 7 5

6 About AspenTech AspenTech is a leading supplier of software that optimizes process manufacturing for energy, chemicals, engineering and construction, and other industries that manufacture and produce products from a chemical process. With integrated aspenone solutions, process manufacturers can implement best practices for optimizing their engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain operations. As a result, AspenTech customers are better able to increase capacity, improve margins, reduce costs, and become more energy efficient. To see how the world s leading process manufacturers rely on AspenTech to achieve their operational excellence goals, visit Worldwide Headquarters Aspen Technology, Inc. 200 Wheeler Road Burlington, MA United States phone: fax: info@aspentech.com 2013 Aspen Technology, Inc. AspenTech, aspenone, the Aspen leaf logo, the aspenone logo, and OPTIMIZE are trademarks of Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved Regional Headquarters Houston, TX USA phone: São Paulo Brazil phone: Reading United Kingdom phone: +44 (0) Singapore Republic of Singapore phone: Manama Bahrain phone: For a complete list of offices, please visit