Case studyWater & wastewaterReduce energy & emissions

Aeration energy down 9% while holding effluent limits.

A regional wastewater treatment plant uses Intelecy to forecast load and trim aeration setpoints — without breaching ammonia or DO targets.

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ForecastingSoft sensorPrescriptive optimization
THROUGHPUT · LINE_02horizon 4h
+240 min projection · +4.8% t/h achievable
At a glancetimeframes and caveats below
−9%
kWh / m³
9 months rolling
vs prior-year baseline, weather-normalised
0
permit exceedances
Same period
Effluent NH₄ and DO within limits
12 weeks
to first signal
Pilot to recommendation
Single basin, single shift
2.4 yrs
estimated payback
Plant-wide rollout
Illustrative; excludes grants
Challenge

What was happening before.

Operators knew the setpoints were too high outside peak hours but had no defensible way to lower them. Every reduction trial risked an ammonia excursion, and the SCADA trend tools made root-cause comparison across shifts slow.

Constraints
  • Effluent NH₄ must stay under the permit limit at all times.
  • DO setpoints can change at most every 15 minutes, ramped not stepped.
  • Any recommendation must be reviewable by the duty operator before it commits.
Solution

What we built, on what data.

Data
  • › Historian tags: influent flow, NH₄, DO per zone, blower kW, ORP
  • › Lab samples: daily composite NH₄, BOD
  • › Weather feed: ambient temperature, rainfall
  1. 01
    Build a soft sensor for true load
    Combined flow and NH₄ into a 30-minute load forecast that updates every minute.
  2. 02
    Train a DO setpoint advisor
    Prescriptive model proposes per-zone DO setpoints that meet effluent targets at the lowest blower kW.
  3. 03
    Operator-in-the-loop review
    Duty operator sees the recommendation, the predicted NH₄ envelope, and the energy delta before applying.
  4. 04
    Closed-loop on approved windows
    Off-peak hours run closed-loop with hard guardrails; alarms revert to manual setpoints automatically.
Adoption

Who uses it, and where it fits in the day.

Used by the duty operator at every shift handover. The morning supervisor reviews the previous 24 h of recommendations and a weekly report goes to the process engineer.

Modules in use
ForecastingSoft sensorPrescriptive optimization
Results

Quantified, with timeframe and caveats.

  • R19% reduction in aeration kWh per m³ treated across 9 months.
  • R2Zero permit exceedances during the trial window.
  • R3Time-to-decision for setpoint changes reduced from hours to under five minutes.
THROUGHPUT · LINE_02horizon 4h
+240 min projection · +4.8% t/h achievable

Operational outcome (proof rule): 9% reduction in aeration kWh per m³ treated across 9 months, with no permit exceedances.

Voice from the floor
"We finally trust the recommendation enough to leave it on overnight. The energy number isn't the headline — the headline is that we stopped over-aerating just to feel safe."
Operations Supervisor · Day shift lead · Nordic Water Utility
Replication

Relevant for teams trying to…

Water & wastewater teams optimising aeration, blower scheduling, or coagulant dosing.

Solution: Reduce energy & emissions →Industry: Water & wastewater →
Lessons
  • Start with one basin; rolling out plant-wide before the operators believe the recommendation kills adoption.
  • Couple the energy KPI to a quality KPI in the same view. Energy alone gets rolled back the first time effluent looks off.
  • Treat operator overrides as labelled data, not failure events.
Get started

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Tell us your unit and your KPI. We'll come back with what data you'd need and a realistic timeline based on Nordic Water Utility's rollout.

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