How the river Emscher transformed from Germany's most polluted to one of its cleanest: wastewater management company EGLV tackled this challenge with the support of virtualization and cutting-edge process control technology.
In this video interview, Dr. Emanuel Grün, Head of Water Management and Technology, EGLV, and Eckard Eberle, former CEO Process Automation, Siemens, share insights into how virtualization and process control technology helped transform the Emscher.
The Emschergenossenschaft and Lippeverband (EGLV) jointly manage wastewater treatment, flood protection, groundwater management, mining-related remediation, river restoration and ecosystem protection.
A profitability study revealed that centralizing process control on one virtual platform reduces operational costs by at least 20%.
One unified platform now connects and manages approximately 800 distributed plants and systems, including 59 wastewater treatment plants and 546 pump stations.
By betting on the right technologies, EGLV ensures that residents, animals, and plants can enjoy a safe and natural habitat along the Emscher and Lippe rivers for decades to come.
The Emscher Restoration Project is one for the ages. Once Europe's largest open sewer, the river Emscher was revitalized into a near-natural state in a 30-year multiphase, multigenerational enterprise. A key part of the venture involved upgrading and expanding all wastewater treatment systems in and around the Emscher and Lippe River basins. The process control of hundreds of plants and systems had to be migrated onto one virtual platform. Wastewater management company EGLV, which manages the water cycle of Europe's largest conurbation between Dortmund and Duisburg and the neighboring Lippe region to the north, turned to SIMATIC PCS 7 and virtualization technology from Siemens to support this monumental undertaking.
Approximately 800 distributed plants and systems, including 59 wastewater treatment plants and 546 pump stations, are operated by EGLV. Many of these plants have their own process control systems that are maintained locally causing enormous efforts for their operation.
Following the results of a profitability study – which revealed that a centralized virtual system would reduce operational cost by at least 20% – EGLV combined the responsibility for their plants’ IT and operational technology systems into one. It then turned to Siemens to virtualize and connect their numerous process control systems. SIMATIC PCS 7 with the integrated standardized Water Templates, which offered functionalities tailored to the water industry, formed the foundation of the digital solution.
This demanding challenge can only be accomplished with a correspondingly efficient and modern infrastructure, especially in the area of process control technology.
“Connecting the local control systems to the central control system was quite a challenge,” says Andre Albers, Siemens Digital Industries sales representative. EGLV and Siemens found an innovative, reliable, cost-effective, and secure solution that used existing public networks and a VPN tunnel. The first plants were successfully migrated. Close collaboration between the local staff and the project team helped facilitate the adoption of the new system. To reduce cost, EGLV integrates each plant into the system one-by-one when the local process control solution is due for an upgrade. Next in line are large wastewater processing plants serving the equivalent of more than half a million people.
In addition to upgrading existing plants, EGLV completed the construction of the new Emscher sewer running between the Dortmund-Deusen and the Emschermündung wastewater treatment plants. The 51 km long sewer collects wastewater of over 2,26 million inhabitants, as well as large volumes from industry and business, and routes them to the Bottrop and Emschermündung treatment plants. One of the sewer’s three large pumping stations and the new solar-thermal sewage sludge drying plant run on the virtual platform. Both applications were flagship projects within the region and for EGLV.
“As part of the digital transformation at EGLV, we are particularly interested in further utilizing our plant data by creating digital twins and the use of artificial intelligence in plant operation.
This digitization project is not just an end in itself, it also has a higher value. Our goal is to create livable spaces for people and nature along the Emscher and Lippe rivers.” Dr. Emanuel Grün explained at the time.
By betting on the right technologies to improve its operations, EGLV ensured that the 30-year Emscher renaturation project held its course and that residents, animals and plants can enjoy a safe and natural habitat for many more decades to come.
November 2022
