Smarter Lift and Pump Stations: How AI and intelligent sensors are helping Utility maintenance, operations, engineering, and finance with the bottom line.

While utilities have always had access to SCADA based instrumentation to monitor some of their Lift and Pump stations for performance and operating risks … the investments made by software and hardware developers in Machine Learning and Higher Resolution (Detection Accuracy), Sensor Hardware, and Communication Networks have led to more choices and better data insights for maintenance, operations, engineering and finance staff to reduce costs, avoid costly equipment outages, and mitigate compliance violations.

For example, vendors have developed sophisticated Machine Learning models that can monitor rotating equipment, such as pumps and motors, for signs that the equipment needs to be scheduled for maintenance or that the equipment may fail without intervention. By using Machine Learning, the software can be “trained” to learn about temperature, vibration, and other patterns of individual models and types of equipment. While some pump OEMs may offer sensors for monitoring their condition, it would be painful for staff to have to monitor multiple software applications and alerts from multiple OEM providers. One of the leading sensor and software vendors in this market is Asystom, a fast growing company based in France but supporting the U.S. utilities market. We are an authorized reseller partner with Asystom, and this is a link to one of their product sheets.

Monitoring PRV systems and sewer and water levels and flows is also critical to station operations. Again, there are many vendors that offer various types of non-contact and submersible sensors to measure and alert for unusual levels of water, sewer, flows (e.g. stormwater intake), etc. SCADA systems can monitor PRV systems, but can be costly. However, many sensor vendors only provide software solutions that leverage this data that are responsive (problem occurred) vs proactive (prevent the problem). In addition, some of these sensors require wireless and battery-powered operations … which can mean connection downtimes and manual visits for frequent battery replacements. Vendors including Ayyeka have designed their hardware (intelligent Remote Telemetry Units, or RTUs) to pair up with a large number of different sensors from different manufacturers, and provide a single software platform leveraging Machine Learning to make it easer for staff to find all of their data on a single platform (or to easily integrate with their SCADA system).

There are a growing number of software companies that offer AI based solutions for water and wastewater utilities. These include Aquasight, Neer, Baseform, IoSight, and Voda, among others. They each bring different insights into water, wastewater, and stormwater networks, such as asset management, equipment performance, resiliency audits (e.g. flood and weather challenges) system-wide failure risks, hydraulic modeling, and compliance risks. Aquasight recently authored an article on Lift Station Management .. and leveraging AI and other available intelligent software and hardware tools. We have partnered with some of these vendors, and would be glad to share more insights on these applications.