Municipalities can optimize their water and wastewater processes with automation and instrumentation solutions to reduce expenses and control waste. When these systems are optimized for peak performance, they can reduce raw material consumption, improve energy efficiency, and reduce overall costs.

The best automation solutions include drives, energy efficient motors, PLCs, pressure sensors, flowmeters, and other measurement products. When municipalities also leverage monitoring systems, they reduce risk and optimize reliability allowing them to integrate operations, asset, and supply chain management.

Although municipal process equipment is a major consumer of electrical energy, municipalities are still required to provide reliable, cost-effective water and wastewater treatment. This creates a critical challenge as water utilities must balance reliability with energy usage. Choosing the right automation technologies can help increase process and system efficiency (Read Employing Disruptive Technologies for Motor-Driven Systems).

Consider a ‘Smart’ Motor. Motors are powerful workhorses, so why not get a motor that tells you when it’s time for service?! With diagnostic tools for preventive/predictive maintenance, you can monitor and manage conditions – either on-site or remotely – to detect issues and be notified about service needs before troublesome failures.

Choose VFDs designed specifically for water. Installing VFDs are important, but leveraging their full capabilities can significantly improve your processes.

Some pump-specific features:

• Pump clean dislodges debris from the impeller.
• Sensorless flow calculation provides accurate flow measurement.
• Soft pipe fill gradually fills pipes to reduce water-hammer damage.
• Quick-ramp functionality protects submersible pumps.
• Dry-run protection prevents the pump from running without water.
• Embedded PID controllers automate flow, pressure, level, DO, etc.
• Multi-pump control balances run time for pump operations of up to eight pumps simultaneously.

The VFD can be customized for maximum energy savings and reliable operation. The intuitive keypad leverages industry-specific pump terminology and provides a powerful control interface that simplifies set-up, system monitoring, condition diagnostics and operational tuning.

Utilize Flow Measurement. Whether potable water, wastewater, raw sewage, or final effluent, take advantage of flow measurement and its innovative and versatile features to achieve interoperability within a wide range of asset management systems for reliable flow measurement.

Overall network monitoring. For overall network-wide monitoring and control, Data Management is scalable software that combines supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) functions. Through various HMI options, it allows you to control a broad range of systems, from simple discrete booster stations to large process plants, supporting numerous communication protocols into the field, to higher level systems, and into the cloud.

How ABB can help!
Smart Motors: For real-time insight into the motor’s condition while it’s running, leverage ABB Ability™ Smart Sensors and measurement tools to achieve additional productivity gains and to avoid breakdowns. ABB drives and soft starters provide additional protection from stress by managing starting currents. For larger systems, PLCs with embedded water libraries can control up to eight pumps, while also doing conditional monitoring on the pump system.
VFDs: The ACQ580 VFD from ABB enhances performance, simplifies commissioning and operation, optimizes wire-to-water and wire-to-air efficiency while improving flow and reliability in municipal pumping and aeration applications.
Flow Measurement: WaterMaster’s performance is guaranteed with on-board verification using the time-proven Verimaster’s advanced diagnostics, which constantly check the health of the flow sensor and electronics, without the need to remove the meter or even stop flow. Proven in the toughest applications, it’s rugged, maintenance-free design allows the sensor to be buried underground, eliminating the need for expensive meter chambers.
Network Monitoring: ABB’s zenon is scalable software that combines supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) functions. ABB’s NETA-21 IoT gateway also provides remote monitoring of ABB drives via a web browser-based platform, either through direct remote connection or through our cloud service ABB Ability™ Condition Monitoring for Drives.

Tailor your solution for advanced productivity. ABB provides a broad portfolio of automation equipment can be used tailor the processes for your facility. With many of these devices equipped with water-specific functionality, you now have powerful new tools to help you reduce unnecessary costs, while proactively monitoring the system to increase both productivity and reliability. What are you waiting for?