Hierarchical Control System for Energy Savings in Wastewater Treatment Plant

The primary goal of sustainable wastewater companies is to improve overall unit efficiency by reducing the required materials, electrical energy consumption savings and improving in the process technologies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the design and implementation of a hierarchical control system for operational optimization of the entire wastewater treatment plant. Two-layer hierarchical control has been designed and implemented: process control as a lower layer and a higher layer of optimization. The goal is a lower energy consumption of the plant while maintaining the quality parameters of the effluent water. Because the aeration system is responsible of up to 70% of the total energy consumption of the plant, the higher-level control layer deals with the optimization of the aeration process. The results indicate a considerable energy saving compared to the initial plant control system.