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World Environment Day 2024, is a chance to shine a spotlight on solutions to restoring land, halting desertification and building drought resilience. Fifty-five million people are directly affected by droughts annually, making it the most serious hazard to livestock and crops in nearly every part of the world.
ABB contributes to drought resilience initiatives across the entire water cycle, from water sourcing, management and treatment, through transmission, distribution, water reuse, and irrigation.
Water sourcing involves identifying and procuring water from reliable and sustainable sources. The availability of clean water, particularly in regions where freshwater is not readily obtained from groundwater or freshwater sources such as rivers and lakes, often requires water production through saline water sources. In other cases, some regions with challenging landscapes need help in making water available for their urgent needs.
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World’s first dual mode desalination plant
One potential solution can be found in Singapore, where the world’s first dual mode desalination plant can produce 30 million gallons of potable water from both sea and rainwater, powered by ABB’s state of the art automation, measurement and analytical technologies.
World’s largest seawater desalination project
Approximately 45 kilometers north of Abu Dhabi city, the Taweelah project is the world’s largest seawater desalination project. Using reverse osmosis desalinates seawater for supply to local communities and industry in the area. It has set new benchmarks for its size, efficiency and cost by utilizing the lowest amount of energy per cubic meter of water produced. The USD 500 million development has the capacity to process over 900,000 cubic meters of seawater per day, enough to meet the demands of over 350,000 households.
Challenged to provide safe, reliable and stable power supply to the operation of the seawater desalination equipment, ABB delivered 30 panels of medium-voltage switchgear and 250 panels of low-voltage switchgear with digital capabilities.
Successful drought response using ABB technology
Monterrey’s metropolitan area suffered a 6-year drought. To address this challenge, Servicios de Agua y Drenaje de Monterrey, supported by the local government, leveraged instrumentation technology, including 400 ABB AquaMaster4 flowmeters out of which five were supersized flowmeters. To transport the water from distant lakes, five aqueducts were built, and the flow was monitored and controlled using the five supersized flowmeters.
The world's largest multi-stage lift irrigation project
The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation System is the world's largest multi-stage lift irrigation project, is designed to bring much needed water to the Indian state of Telangana. In spite of the fact that two major rivers, the Godavari and the Krishna, are flowing across the state of Telangana in southern India, the elevation of the land table – 300 to 650 meters above sea level is a challenge. The project will end the water woes by directing a massive 5.5 billion cubic meters (or 195 billion cubic feet) of water annually to the parched areas of Telangana.
To help accomplish this truly heavy lifting, ABB has supplied 37 medium voltage motors of both 40MW and 43MW sizes, 15 medium voltage load commutated inverter (LCI) drive units, the excitation systems, Low voltage and high voltage switchgears, the PLC based SCADA and other electricals to run the pumps.
Joyce Moganedi, Solutions Sales Manager, Process Automation, highlights ABB’s initiatives addressing the problem of water scarcity in South Africa.
Efficient water management involves optimizing water consumption to reduce waste and ensure sustainability. While 70 percent of our planet is covered with water, only three percent of it is fresh. Leakage and loss further contribute to water scarcity. With water resources stretched by the needs of an increasing global population, the need for transformative technologies across the water industry has never been more urgent.
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ABB softstarters turning Ganges into drinking water
The ancient city of Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges, draws millions of pilgrims and tourists every year – which can be a strain on its natural resources and energy demands. But through a range of different projects, the city is harnessing modern technology to become cleaner and more efficient for locals and visitors alike. The Ganges, India's holiest river, has long struggled with pollution. In fact, levels of bacteria here are nearly 500,000 times India's recommended safe limit for bathing. But here at the local water treatment plant, they're turning that river water into clean drinking water for the city at a rate of 36 million liters a day. It's an essential service that's now more efficient than ever, thanks to ABB softstarters, which help prevent leaks in the infrastructure and which have drastically cut down on the manual labor required to operate this system.
Lowering energy consumption in water plant operations
Water is a scarce commodity and treating it can be energy intensive. ABB domain expertise and drives technology helps lower energy consumption in water plant operations. See the interview with Arc Water Technologies and find out how they conserve water and save energy.
ABB Ability™ Condition Monitoring solution for powertrains
The CAFC water company aimed to standardize their equipment and select the most reliable digital products in order to reduce the number of maintenance people needed, and to optimize their activities. Thanks to ABB Ability™ Condition Monitoring solution for powertrains, the CAFC has achieved positive results in its management of drinking water capture, potability, adduction and distribution, sewerage, and water treatment in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy.
ABB’s technologies measure, monitor and control while ensuring a safe and clean water supply
Efficient water infrastructures are fundamental to a city’s good health. ABB won the public tender to support the Municipality of Naousa’s efforts to transform the city’s water infrastructures and provide quality water to more than 20,000 inhabitants. ABB’s advanced solutions allow for monitoring water balance in the supply network, while providing safe, clean water to people affordably.
Water positivity is the concept of returning more water to freshwater sources than is withdrawn and maintaining sustainable water stewardship by establishing a framework for water management. At ABB in India, we are working towards efficient water management to achieve ‘water positivity’ across our owned factories. We have implemented a unique 6R approach, which includes initiatives such as rainwater use and recharge, reduction in the use of freshwater, water recycling, and real-time monitoring of water consumption, recharge, and saving. Our initiatives are in line with standards provided by the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) Council, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC).
Rajesh Jha showcases efficient water management initiatives to achieve ‘water positivity’ across our factories in India.
Wastewater treatment is a process used to remove contaminants from wastewater or sewage and convert it into a effluent that be returned to the water cycle with acceptable impact on the environment, or reused for various purposes. Pollutants in wastewater are removed, converted or broken during the treatment process. Wastewater treatment and pumping is highly energy intensive. Applying the latest innovations and energy efficient solutions from ABB can help.
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World’s largest wastewater treatment plant
Considered one of the world’s largest wastewater treatment plants, the Bahr El Bakar facility in Sinai, Egypt, delivers a record-breaking capacity of 5.6 million cubic meters of treated water per day - the equivalent volume to fill nearly 2,000 Olympic swimming pools - for agriculture development projects and industrial production. Inaugurated in 2021, the plant treats agricultural wastewater to provide treated water for crop production and restores 140,000 hectares of farmland to the east of the Suez Canal. ABB has delivered a range of high-end solutions to the project including technology from its Electrification, Motion and Process Automation business areas.
ABB drives, motors and solutions cutting energy bills
Brazilian water and wastewater company Saneago is the major water and wastewater utilities serving Goiás, the seventh largest state in Brazil, located in the south-central part of the country. Saneago treats and supplies drinking water for more than 5.7 million people and thousands of industrial and agricultural users, with the incoming water pumped to the treatment plant from several water sources. ABB drives, motors and ABB Ability™ digital services played a major role in helping them cut pumping energy bills by around US$700,000 annually. At the same time, the ABB Ability™ Digital Powertrain solution improves uptime by giving valuable new insight into the condition of the equipment and maintenance needs.
The sewage treatment plant in Bocholt
The sewage treatment plant in Bocholt processes up to 108,000 cubic meters of wastewater daily. Achieving the goal of reducing the country's emissions by 65 percent by 2030 will necessitate a collaborative effort, including enhancing energy efficiency in water and wastewater facilities. The operators at Bocholt are eager to contribute to this initiative and collaborates with ABB to reduce energy consumption in their processes.
This episode of The Process Automation Podcast delves deep into the world of water. Our need for water is essential and that need is ever-growing. One-fifth of the wastewater generated around the world is currently reused. Scarcity, ageing infrastructure, limited access and climate change all demand more efficient management of available water resources to serve a growing global population. Together we look into how efficient water resource management through the implementation of smart automation solutions can help secure the future of water for our planet.