Wastewater monitoring technology enables wastewater treatment plants to reduce energy usage and reduce costs significantly

The current push for “Net Zero Energy” in wastewater treatment processes means that water utility companies need to make changes to their way of working. Wessex Water, providers of water to over 2.8 million consumers in the UK, recently trialled QCL’s (Quadrachem Laboratories) Sentry wastewater monitor to aid plant optimisation and reach their ‘Net Zero Energy’ target. As an example: a motion sensor light uses far less energy when not activated and only switching itself on when needed. Sentry has the capability to turn off some treatment steps in the event of low microbial flows, thus making considerable energy savings.

This wastewater treatment plant in question processes combined influent wastewater flows from both municipal and industrial customers. The quantity and variety of municipal and heavy industry wastewater flows makes maximising aeration efficiency very complex, especially when all Biological Aerated Flooded Filter (BAFF) cells need to be operated to meet peak loading demand.

One Sentry unit is deployed before and one after the BAFF cell. Using data from the Sentry, the plant’s operators intend to turn off the BAFF units during periods of low microbial load. This would facilitate an energy saving of 10-20% for this site, resulting in yearly savings of £50,000-£100,000.