[American Water] 수처리플랜트 운영 향상 위한 R&D 프로젝트 기금

아메리칸 워터(American Water, AW)는 최근 이스라엘·미국 양국 산업 연구개발(BIRD) 재단으로부터 인프라시설 관리 전문업체인 IOSight사와 나란히 2년 기간의 연구개발(R&D) 프로젝트에 200만 달러의 부분적 기금에 80만 달러를 수여받았다고 발표했다.

이 프로젝트는 상·하수처리 플랜트 운영의 효율성을 향상시키기 위한 결정지원 시스템의 연구개발을 지원하고, 운영효율성 및 잠재비용절약을 확인하기 위해 이들 시설에서 데이터 분석 툴을 개발할 예정이다.

American Water (AW), the nation's largest publicly traded water and wastewater utility company, recently announced that it has received an $800,000 award to partially fund a $2-million, 2-year research and development (R&D) project, alongside IOSight, Ltd., a specialist in infrastructure facility management from the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation.

The project will support the R&D of decision support systems to improve the efficiency of water and wastewater treatment plant operations. The project will develop data analysis tools within a data management and reporting framework at these facilities to identify operating efficiencies and potential cost savings. The proposed smart water management systems will develop and integrate comprehensive data management and analysis and reporting systems covering the major processes performed in plants.

This endeavor will allow plant operators to leverage the smart water management system reports and analytics to create improved, streamlined and more efficient operations. While focusing on single locations for water and wastewater, the research results will be useful to the larger North American water utility sector. Areas of improved efficiency will include chemical addition, energy and preventive maintenance.

"Increasing operational efficiency is a major priority at American Water and for many utilities around the world," said Dr. Mark LeChevallier, director of Innovation and Environmental Stewardship at AW. "While across our industry treatment plants are equipped with a multitude of sensors and collect a lot of data, most utilities do not make efficient use of this. Thus, it can be said that we are data rich but information poor. The innovation will allow us to better harness the data that we do collect and enable us to make actionable decisions to improve operations and save money, which ultimately benefits our customers."

[출처 = Water World / 2015년 7월 2일]