Controller Design for Water Treatment Plants Using Data-Driven Control

This study explores methods for improving energy efficiency in wastewater treatment facilities to address the pressure of rising electricity tariffs. As the energy consumption by water treatment facilities accounting for about 50% of the total electricity consumption in wastewater treatment facilities, particular attention is paid to the energy utilization of blowers within water treatment facilities [1], [2]. The aim is to achieve appropriate control of aeration equipment based on the facility’s conditions and environment, without relying on plant models but using data-driven control. This approach addresses the problem of excessive electricity consumption in current scenarios that rely on manual control or simple control loops. By employing VRFT for the PID controller parameter tuning, a successful improvement in the target response performance was achieved. The proposed method achieved an error in the DO response comparable to that of conventional methods and reduced the operating costs of aeration at wastewater treatment plants by about 12%.