As water becomes a scarcer resource, environmental laws continue to tighten globally. It’s critical to efficiently manage facility water and energy use, not only to help cut costs but also to improve compliance with ever-evolving environmental regulations. Emerson has developed an integrated control solution that carefully monitors and dynamically regulates when, where, and how much water is used and recycled at different points in the industrial process, and provides hands-on, browser-displayed data that can be accessed from any location with web access.
Traditionally, industrial control systems operate on-site within a closed loop, gathering data, performing analysis, and managing controllers with limited support for interconnectivity throughout disparate processes. Also, processor limitations such as speed and lack of partitioning have made it difficult to create sophisticated, data-driven models and perform process optimization in real-time, unnecessarily complicating analytical processes. Both the nature of the industry and a universal need for improved reliability and quality mandate that a higher degree of precision be achieved in the monitoring and control of water treatment programs, far greater than what can be achieved with manual monitoring and closed-loop systems. Continuous on-line monitoring with an automated feedback loop to the machine are most often a necessary component of any automation & control program. Emerson’s edge control solutions encompass a portfolio of network-integrated, outcome optimizing edge controllers and switches that can be accessed from anywhere and programmed to dynamically improve process operations based on both external and internal data.
Most industrial water treatment systems are dynamic. They’re in a constant state of flux due to seasonal variations in water chemistry, varying plant operating conditions, new environmental laws, and many other factors. Because of this, advanced automation and control systems are essential to ensure that the water treatment processes used by boilers, cooling, wastewater and other industrial water systems are being monitored and appropriately regulated to help achieve optimal output.
Over the last decade, electronics and microprocessor technology have leap-frogged the legacy technology employed by and entrenched in many industrial businesses, including water and wastewater. There is now a wide range of sophisticated, cyber-secure hardware technology available to monitor and dynamically control parameters that regulate conditions like organic suspended solids, conductivity, pH, corrosion rate, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, sodium, and fouling. Plant managers need to explore the benefits in terms of efficiency, safety, reduction of personnel time and costs that edge control systems can represent to the water and wastewater industry.
How are you employing edge computing in your water plant?