Case Study: Distributed Sewage Monitoring

CTHINGS.CO’s solution empowering municipalities and utility providers to leverage the benefits of IoT into better decisions.

The Challenge:

Outdated wastewater infrastructure and more frequent and intense rainfall pose challenges for municipalities and private utility providers. Pipelines are always prone to blockages, and storm-related surges can cause significant damage to the infrastructure and the surrounding area.

Manually monitoring sewage systems has proven complex, labor-intensive, and often insufficient to prevent potential overflows from occurring. This underscores the need for a dependable, simple-to-implement, and expandable remote monitoring solution to mitigate these issues effectively.

Smart utilities monitoring solutions can bridge these gaps, offering data-driven oversight to prevent disasters, optimize maintenance, and enhance the resilience of wastewater infrastructure.

The Solution:

Smart Utilities Platform allows municipalities to remotely monitor the liquid levels inside individual manholes thanks to an integrated Smart RADAR sensor. The sensor is based on a unique technology that offers millimeter level measurement accuracy with broadband radar. Enabled by Orchestra, Smart Utilities Platform offers an accurate widespread overview of the wastewater system.

The solution was created for critical operations in difficult conditions. The robust construction of the measuring devices ensures resistance to corrosive gas environments and effective operation in the temperature range from -40 °C up to 85 °C. Moreover, our easy-to-install devices don’t require any cabling and can connect through public cellular networks.

All data ends up on our user-friendly online platform, providing interactive insights into data, reports, enabling alerts and notifications. By utilizing Smart Utilities Platform, municipalities can gain full control over their distributed devices in just a few clicks.

The Results:

With more than 1,500 units deployed across Europe, mainly in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, Smart Utilities Platform has collected more than 10 million data points with measurement granularity of up to 0.1m, presenting numerous benefits for municipalities and utility providers:

• Overflow Prevention: By continuously monitoring water and sewage levels in real-time, the system promptly alerts to potential overflows. This proactive approach helps prevent contamination and the associated environmental and health risks.
• Cost and Resource Efficiency: By providing accurate data on the condition of wells, sewage levels, and water reservoirs, the solution eliminates the need for frequent physical inspections. This leads to reduced resource and manpower requirements, optimizing operational efficiency.
• Infrastructure Protection: Timely notifications about unauthorized tempering and potential issues safeguard water and sewage infrastructure. Early detection of anomalies allows for swift response and preventive maintenance, minimizing the risk of damage and costly repairs.
• Sustainable Management: The system helps in complying with EU directives by promoting sustainable water resource management. Monitoring water overflows and managing resources efficiently contribute to meeting environmental standards.

Smart Utilities Platform empowers municipalities and utility providers with efficient, sustainable, and data-driven management tools, leading to improved infrastructure protection, cost savings, compliance with regulations, and enhanced safety for residents.