Reducing Wastewater Treatment Operational Expenditure, Carbon and Sensor Drift through Digital Innovation

Water utilities are under increasing pressure to maintain plant performance while reducing operational cost and carbon, due to population density, ageing infrastructure and climate change. Digital technology can address these challenges through the application of data science and advanced analytics. The Rosedale Wastewater Treatment Plant in Auckland, New Zealand, consists of primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment and serves a population equivalent of 240,000. After creating a digital twin to support commissioning of a fourth reactor in 2020, it was identified that the digital twin could provide new insights into operational cost and greenhouse gas and support decisionsmaking, to help Watercare achieve their objective to reduce operational greenhouse gas by 50%. Live dashboards were developed to provide new insights into operational greenhouse gas emissions and cost which leveraged real-time biological modelling and emissions monitoring data. Soft sensors were developed to improve the instrumentation data quality through early identification of sensor drift.