About Us

About Us

ACET is a collaboration between industry and third-level research which is strongly needed in order to develop innovation in the water sector that can be rapidly adapted by the public and private sectors. The scientific impact of this work will be significant on an international stage. In itself, the control strategies proposed in ACET are unique in taking a holistic WWTP-wide view of control-based efficiencies and in particular in implementing machine learning, statistical modeling, and life cycle tools.

The work will be particularly high impact given the scale of the demonstrations being proposed. It is also expected that the work would strengthen the University of Galway and VorTech research team in terms of international research funding and further develop the significant relationships of the project team with industry and regulatory stakeholders in this sector.

The International Water Association and global water utilities have recognised both the need for research in this area and, importantly, the need for demonstration at scale. The project has the potential to impact the key scientific and engineering challenges associated with the use of advanced control in WWTPs by (i) leveraging data from online sensors and advanced controllers which currently overwhelms operators and is not currently considered usable for operator support, (ii) demonstrating the use of big data analytics to enable combined optimisation of effluent discharges and energy efficiency, (iii) developing a framework which can be deployed in decentralized systems and not just large manned centralised systems and (iv) demonstration of control systems that can enable better energy efficiency while demonstrating robustness to disturbances. It should be noted that these impacts are not just scientific in nature but also impact enterprise and the public sector.