Costs Are Rising. Your Operational Data May Show You Where to Save.

Part 3 of our Driving Digital in Water and Wastewater Operations series

Running a water or wastewater utility is not getting any cheaper. Aging infrastructure requires continued investment, energy and operating costs are increasing, and utilities are balancing those pressures with regulatory requirements and the need to keep services affordable for the communities they serve.

There isn’t a simple answer to those challenges, and many of the investments utilities need to make are unavoidable. But there may be opportunities within the operation to offset some of those pressures. Before assuming the answer is always a higher budget, more equipment, or another major project, it may be worth taking a closer look at something most utilities already have plenty of: operational data.

Utilities have been collecting that data for years. Pump performance, flow rates, tank levels, pressure, chemical consumption, energy consumption, alarms, and water quality information are already being captured across the operation. The bigger question is whether that information is simply showing you what happened or helping you identify what could be done differently.

You Already Have the Data. What Else Can It Tell You?

This question came up during our Driving Digital in Water and Wastewater Operations webinar, when an attendee shared that their utility had years of historian data but primarily used it for trend analysis. They wanted to know what else they could be doing with it.

Trending and reporting are important, especially in an industry where historical information plays such a critical role in compliance. But Kurt Peterson and Scott Lamothe discussed how that same history can be used to examine leak detection, chemical consumption, energy usage, demand forecasting, and other areas of the operation more closely.

More importantly, it gives utilities a way to test assumptions. You may know when your pumps normally run, how much chemical you typically use, or how your system generally responds during different periods of demand. Those practices may work perfectly well, but when was the last time you looked at the data and asked whether there might be a better way?

As Kurt put it during the webinar, sometimes the question is, “We’ve run this way for 20 years, but do we actually need to run this way?”

Just Because It Works Doesn’t Mean It’s Efficient

Water and wastewater operations don’t change overnight, and reliability will always matter. Many operating practices have been built through decades of experience for good reason. But the conditions surrounding those processes continue to change. Energy rates change. Equipment changes. Demand changes. Technology improves. Experienced employees retire, and new people take their place.

A decision that made sense 10 or 20 years ago may still work today, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it remains the most efficient way to operate. This is where years of historical data become valuable in a different way. Instead of relying solely on how something has always been done, teams can examine what has happened under different operating conditions and use that information to evaluate other possibilities.

Energy use is a good example. During the webinar, Kurt discussed how utilities can use operational history to better understand and forecast demand. With a clearer idea of how much capacity will be needed during a given day or week, utilities can evaluate when energy-intensive equipment actually needs to run. A utility may be able to fill its reservoirs during lower-cost energy periods, for example, rather than operating large pumps during peak demand.

It’s a relatively simple question: Does this equipment have to run when we’re currently running it? But the answer can have a significant impact.

One Utility Found More Than $300,000 in Energy Savings.

Scott shared a real example during the webinar from a utility managing water movement across a large district. Someone within the organization developed an algorithm to determine when pumps should operate to move water throughout the system. By changing when the equipment ran, the utility saved more than $300,000 in electricity costs during the first year.

What makes this example interesting isn’t just the savings. The utility was already moving water successfully before the change. There wasn’t necessarily a broken process to fix. Instead, the organization used the information available to them, questioned how the process was being run, and found a more efficient approach.

For utilities facing tighter budgets, savings at that scale can make a meaningful difference. That money can be redirected toward infrastructure, maintenance, staffing, modernization, cybersecurity, or any number of other priorities competing for the same resources.

And the information needed to identify the opportunity was already there.

What Could Be Hiding in Your Operational History?

Energy isn’t the only place where this approach applies. Historical operational data can help utilities examine chemical consumption, water loss, equipment performance, demand patterns, and recurring operational issues. Sometimes the opportunity isn’t immediately obvious because nothing has technically failed.

Historical data, for example, may reveal periods when water quality requirements were met using less chlorine or other treatment chemicals. One pump may consistently consume more energy than similar equipment. Certain operating conditions may repeatedly appear before the same problem develops. Equipment may still be following a schedule established years ago even though today’s operating conditions are different.

None of those situations automatically mean something is wrong. But they give teams something worth investigating.

During the webinar, Kurt explained that efficiency can come from revealing blind spots. That’s an important way to look at the value of operational data. Getting more from your data doesn’t always mean creating another dashboard or collecting another measurement. Sometimes it means using the history you already have to challenge something everyone assumed was working as well as it could.

Start With the Problem, Not the Technology

This is also where digital transformation conversations can sometimes get ahead of themselves. It’s easy to start by talking about analytics, AI, cloud platforms, or whatever technology is getting the most attention at the moment. But technology alone doesn’t tell you where the best opportunity is.

Later in the webinar, an attendee asked how an organization should get started with AI. Kurt emphasized the importance of building the right foundational infrastructure and starting with simple, high-impact use cases. Scott added another practical recommendation: identify the two or three things you actually want to fix. That might be energy savings, chemical savings, reduced downtime, or another important operational objective. Once you understand the problem you’re trying to solve, you can determine what data, tools, and people are needed to address it.

That same thinking can apply whether AI is involved or not. If your electricity bill keeps climbing, start there and look at when and how energy is being used. If chemical consumption is a concern, look at what has changed and whether historical conditions can help explain why. If your team keeps responding to the same operational issue, look at what happens before it occurs and whether there is a pattern you’ve been missing.

You don’t have to transform the entire operation at once. One well-defined problem with a measurable outcome can be a much more useful place to begin.

Your Next Opportunity May Already Be in the Data

Utilities will continue facing cost pressures, and operational data isn’t going to make aging infrastructure, regulatory requirements, workforce challenges, or rising costs disappear. What it can do is help teams better understand the parts of their operations they can influence.

After years of collecting operational data, utilities have an opportunity to ask more of it. Instead of only using data to understand what happened, utilities can use it to question how things are being done today, uncover areas that deserve a closer look, and find opportunities to operate more efficiently.

The next meaningful improvement may not require collecting more information. It may start with a problem you already know you have and data you’ve already spent years collecting.

The question is what you ask of it next.

Watch the Full On-Demand Webinar

In Driving Digital in Water and Wastewater Operations, Kurt Peterson and Scott Lamothe dive deeper into these challenges, sharing practical insights, real-world examples, and lessons learned from helping utilities improve efficiency, strengthen resilience, and prepare for what’s next.

Watch the on-demand webinar to explore the full discussion and learn how utilities are building stronger operations for the future.

Watch On-Demand