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Improving wastewater treatment efficiency across Madrid

The Treatment Plant 4.0 approach helped Canal de Isabel II improve the efficiency and sustainability of selected wastewater treatment facilities across the Madrid region, reducing energy consumption by 15% and CO₂ emissions by more than 10%.

What is a Treatment Plant 4.0?

Treatment Plant 4.0 is derived from the Spanish EDAR 4.0 concept, which applies Industry 4.0 technologies to wastewater treatment. By integrating automation, monitoring, simulation, and energy management, operators gain full visibility into plant performance. This enables continuous optimization, reducing energy consumption while improving efficiency and sustainability.

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The least polluting kW is the one that is not used!

Energy is one of the most significant costs for a water treatment plant. These facilities operate around the clock to ensure reliable service and regulatory compliance. To achieve this, it is crucial to adopt technology that can reduce energy consumption while simultaneously guaranteeing maximum operating efficiency for the equipment used. Digital technologies offer significant advantages for water treatment plants. Treatment Plant 4.0 (EDAR 4.0) systems can collect and analyze information from equipment and provide suggestions on how to improve the facility as a whole.

How can a treatment plant be made more efficient and sustainable?

Canal de Isabel II is a public company with a history spanning more than 160 years. As the utility responsible for managing every stage of Madrid's municipal water cycle, it has long been committed to innovation and operational efficiency.

Acciona is a leading company in the water treatment sector, designing, building, and operating drinking water treatment plants, wastewater treatment facilities, water reuse plants, and desalination plants. The company is responsible for the operation and maintenance of 15 Canal de Isabel II wastewater treatment plants. The objective was to make these facilities more efficient and sustainable. To achieve this, Acciona turned to Siemens, a long-standing partner whose solution met all requirements while remaining versatile, simple, and easy to deploy.

Two men talking on a walkway between large pipelines at a wastewater treatment plant

Key benefits

less energy consumption

Advanced monitoring and data driven optimization helped identify inefficiencies and reduce energy demand across treatment processes.

lower CO₂ emissions

Greater operational efficiency translates directly into a smaller carbon footprint and supports long term sustainability targets.

lower operating costs

All plants using SIMATIC Energy Manager Pro benefited from operating cost reductions of more than 3%, driven by greater transparency into energy consumption and plant performance.

Having access to data and full system availability lets us optimize processes every day, which generates benefits for us within a short space of time. Technologically speaking, we have made a huge leap forward with just one update.
Amador Rancaño, Head of O&M, Water Treatment
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At the heart of the solution is SIMATIC Energy Manager Pro (EnMPRO), Siemens' digital energy management platform. Powered by Siemens Edge Computing technology, it collects and processes data from hundreds of systems and makes it available through an intuitive application accessible from virtually any device. This gives Canal de Isabel II full transparency over energy consumption throughout the entire treatment process. With detailed insights into where and how energy is used, operators can identify optimization potential and continuously improve efficiency. As a result, EnMPRO enables the level of energy transparency required for ISO 50001 compliance while supporting more sustainable and cost-efficient plant operations.

With this project, Canal de Isabel II intends to become energy self-sufficient. We want to bring the best possible water to residents in Madrid and treat the city’s wastewater in an efficient and sustainable way. The least polluting kW is the one that is not used!
Miguel Ángel Gálvez, Deputy Director Water Treatment and the Environmen, Canal de Isabel II

Treatment Plant 4.0 features

Acciona and Canal de Isabel II combined a range of Siemens technologies to create one of the most advanced digital wastewater treatment solutions in the sector.

Building on a successful partnership

Going forward, Acciona will continue to explore digital solutions for the water sector with Siemens. Two prime examples of this are the Digital Twin based on Siemens SIMIT software, and SIMATIC control systems developed for a desalination plant in the Middle East. For Acciona, the Treatment Plant 4.0 project was a major step forward. The long term objective is to unlock the full potential of energy generation within the water cycle, supported by powerful infrastructure management tools capable of processing vast amounts of data in real time.

Three men in an office looking at computer monitors displaying dashboard data.
If something cannot be measured, it cannot be improved. This is why our SIMATIC Energy Manager PRO tool lets you work with a high degree of flexibility, monitoring Energy Performance Indicators.
Diego Muñoz, Product Manager, Siemens