Industrial Users and the Bottom Line

There was a time when industrial users worried little about how much water their factories, warehouses, and distribution centers consumed each year.

Those times are over.

Today, facility managers and building owners working in the industrial space are focusing more intently on how much water their buildings use each year for a simple reason: they are seeking ways to reduce their operating costs. Better water management can help.

Industrial users are focusing more, too, on new, more efficient ways to treat their wastewater streams. The money it takes to treat this liquid waste adds up. By moving to more efficient treatment methods, industrial users, again, can provide a nice bump to their bottom lines.

“In regions facing a chronic water shortage, customers are looking for ways to ensure the resilience of their manufacturing plants,” says Rolchigo. “As a result, our customers are implementing technologies that will allow them to reuse water multiple times before discharging it safely back to the environment. Given this, many customers are realizing that implementing sustainable water practices is not only good from a corporate social responsibility perspective, but is also good for the bottom line.”

When Reusing Wastewater Makes Sense
Lee Portillo, vice president of engineering with Los Angeles-based water treatment company OriginClear, wouldn’t disagree. He says that his company is serving a growing number of industrial users too.

He also says that he expects more of these end users to begin working with the company in the coming months.

Portillo says that most of his company’s industrial clients have the same problem: they are generating a liquid wastestream that is not only a major cost, but is also limiting their ability to boost their production.

It doesn’t matter if the industrial users are in the oil and gas business, dairy industry, food business, or manufacturing industry—they all face this challenge, says Portillo.

Consider the issue of business growth: the wastestreams generated by industrial users are usually controlled under a permit that regulates their quality and capacity, says Portillo. When industrial users want to increase their production, they need to make sure that doing this won’t generate a liquid waste­stream that causes them to break their permit.

In other words, even if an industrial user decides to make more car parts per month, it still can’t increase the amount of wastewater it generates past the limits set by federal regulators. Industrial users relying on chemical processes can’t pump out wastewater that is as clean as regulators say it needs to be, no matter how many more products this facility is manufacturing.

That’s where water treatment solutions come in.

“We help our clients make sure that they remain within their permitted regulations,” says Portillo. “We help them ensure the quality of their wastestream or we help them reduce the capacity of their liquid wastestream.”

To help industrial users meet their waste regulations, OriginClear takes what Portillo says is a holistic approach. Engineers first study the processes that produce the liquid wastestream. What does the industrial facility manufacture, and how does it do it?

These engineers then analyze the wastestream. What is in the water? How much waste does the facility produce each day? Engineers will analyze whether the wastestream is particularly acidic or if it is choked with oils and grease.

“We look at all the basic water-quality parameters, and then we look for the most cost-efficient way to treat that wastestream so that it can meet the permit for that facility,” says Portillo. “We then plan to either reuse that water or reduce the size of it so that they can increase their production without going over their permitted levels.”

Rolchigo from Pentair says that reusing treated wastewater is becoming a more common option for industrial users.

This usually comes down to economics—it often makes good financial sense for many large industrial users to treat and reuse more of their water rather than paying large sums of money for water provided by an outside source.

“We see a trend toward viewing wastewater treatment not as a cost center, but rather as an opportunity to recover valuable resources in the form of water that can be reused and repurposed,” says Rolchigo. “We also expect to see the continued development of smart technologies to further optimize performance.”

While treating and reusing wastewater has become a more common approach for industrial users, Portillo says OriginClear only recommends this approach when it makes economic sense.

Industrial users might want to be greener, and treating and reusing wastewater is certainly one way to boost one’s environmentally friendly credentials. But industrial users will typically only go greener if it also helps their bottom line. These users need to receive a financial benefit from treating and reusing wastewater.

Focusing on the Economics
The ultimate goal is to save end users enough each year on their water bills that these savings pay for the technology end users purchase to treat and reuse their water.

“We want the technologies to pay for themselves,” says Portillo.

This is the key for treatment providers: the companies working in this space have to demonstrate to industrial users that using their products for the treatment and reuse of wastewater will produce a quick return on investment (ROI).

If companies can do this—if they can show industrial users that their water treatment systems will actually better their bottom lines—they’ll see their sales increase.

Portillo says that facility managers are well aware of how expensive it can be to treat wastewater. They are looking for solutions to lower this cost, whether they plan on reusing their treated water or simply disposing of it.

“Finding an economical way to treat wastewater is becoming a growing problem,” says Portillo. “When I meet with people at manufacturing facilities, they are happy to talk about what they produce and what the plant generates in revenue. If you ask these people about their liquid wastestream and what they are paying to have it removed, they don’t like talking about that. You find that very often that is a major pain point for people.”

Portillo says that he expects the water treatment business to continue to grow. Not only are end users becoming ever more frustrated by the costs of dealing with their liquid wastestreams, treatment technology is also improving. Industrial users have more options today when it comes to treating or reusing their wastewater.

At the same time, US regulations on wastewater streams are only becoming stricter, says Portillo. These factors combined all point toward an increased demand and need for wastewater treatment, he says.

But again, even the most advanced of wastewater treatment systems need to be economically feasible for industrial users, says Portillo.

“The only thing that really makes something an improvement when it comes to water treatment is if it brings the users a reduction in their costs,” he says. “As the technology continues to improve and we are able to remove oil and grease at a lower cost, it makes more economic sense from an operating-cost perspective to implement treatment. That is the direction that technology providers are moving to.”

“Does it make economic sense? That is the deciding factor in every application,” says Portillo.

Treatment and reuse often make sense for industrial users in the oil and gas space, says Portillo. That’s because these users generate such a large liquid wastestream. It often makes economic sense for these users to use that wastestream in their production processes to reduce the amount of water they consume each year. This will ultimately leave these users with a lower water bill.

However, if the quality of an industrial user’s wastewater stream is so low, the cost of treating it for reuse could be exorbitant, says Portillo. It make more financial sense to transport that wastewater offsite using traditional methods and then buying new water for the facility.

“The same evaluation is done every time when our clients are considering whether reusing wastewater makes sense,” says Portillo. “What is the quality you need for the reused water? What is the quality of the wastestream before treatment? And what is the cost to treat that wastestream to get the water back to the needed quality?”

Other Treatment Options
Industrial users have other options when it comes to water treatment. There’s ultraviolent (UV) water treatment, which is what Aquionics, based in Erlanger, KY, specializes in.

Aquionics supplies UV equipment that end users install within their facilities. For industrial users, UV equipment—a UV lamp and power source—should be one step in a larger wastewater treatment process. Ken Kershner, regional director for the Americas with Aquionics, says that industrial users can’t rely on UV technology alone to completely treat their wastewater.

Instead, UV tech should be a last step in the treatment process, says Kershner.

“We are a portion of the treatment process, usually the last step in it,” says Kershner. “When industrial users look at us in that light, we are absolutely a viable piece of the treatment process.”

Industrial users can use UV treatment for a specific task: to force the inactivation of bacteria to help facilities meet specific permitting or internal health and safety mandates.

Kershner says that industrial users can use UV as an oxidizer by itself or paired with some other barrier such as peroxide and ozone to oxidize specific contaminants in wastewater. Industrial users can also rely on UV treatment to treat water coming into a facility to make sure that it has no bacteria in it. Industrial users can use UV treatment to remove chlorine. Users that need water without chlorine, such as food and beverage manufacturers, often use UV treatment for this purpose, says Kershner.

Within the plant, facility managers can rely on UV treatment to protect a bottle-washing station or cooling loops. Cooling loops are an especially problematic area for many industrial users, as bacteria tends to congregate around them. UV used in conjunction with chemical treatments can reduce and eliminate that bacteria, says Kershner.

“I’d say that 90% of our industrial clients use UV treatment in these kind of ways, at the front—before the water comes in—of their facilities or inside them to keep certain elements free of bacteria,” says Kershner.

The relatively small number of industrial users that use UV treatment to help treat wastewater leaving their facilities are usually those who are worried that their wastestreams will come in contact with human or animal life, says Kershner. The UV treatment is an extra layer of protection.

“It’s a kind of firewall so there is no chance of someone becoming exposed to bacteria,” he says. “The UV is put on as a firewall to make sure that all of the bacteria is eliminated.”

Kershner, like others in his field, thinks that more industrial users will turn to UV treatment in the near future. He says that a growing number of industrial users are already relying on UV treatment to treat water coming into their facilities, with many companies looking at UV treatment as one more way to protect their brands.

“They want to make sure that the city water being delivered to them or the water they are pumping up from a well or surface water source is clean,” says Kershner. “They are using UV treatment to make sure that nothing gets into the plant. So we do expect more growth from industrial users as companies seek new ways to protect their brands.”

The Difference Monitoring Can Make
Treating wastewater isn’t the only way that water can hurt the bottom lines of industrial users. Water leaks, of course, can cost all businesses big money. And for industrial facilities? Those undetected leaks can cause water bills to soar.

Sean Rayborn understands this. He’s vice president of sales and marketing at Alpharetta, GA-based WaterSignal, a company that specializes in real-time water monitoring. His company’s monitoring system tells users immediately when a catastrophic leak hits their facilities.

It also provides users with real-time data. Users can study the numbers to determine if their water usage is rising. If it’s rising too much, it might be a sign of slow, steady leak, which, over time, could be almost as costly as a larger, catastrophic leak.

But even though industrial users know how important it is to monitor their water use, many of them still don’t focus on tracking the way this natural resource moves through and out of their facilities, says Rayborn. That’s because industrial users are often more concerned with how much energy their buildings consume.

This isn’t overly surprising. Warehouses, factories, distribution centers, and other industrial facilities typically use much more electricity than they do water each year. So industrial users are focused first on reducing their power bills.

If they’re not too overwhelmed with that task? Then they’ll consider working with a service like WaterSignal to reduce the amount of water they waste each year, says Rayborn.

“If you look on the commercial side at our typical customers, I’d list retail owners as the most common users of our product, then multifamily owners and then, at number three, industrial users,” says Rayborn. “It’s not that industrial users don’t care or that they aren’t doing their due diligence. It’s just that they are often focused on reducing other costs before they get to water.”

This doesn’t mean that factory, warehouse, and distribution center managers won’t benefit from installing a system like WaterSignal’s. Undiagnosed leaks can result in thousands of gallons of lost water each year at just about any building. Industrial users who can more quickly detect these leaks—and repair them—can provide a boost to their bottom line by significantly reducing their yearly water bills.

EPA says that the untreated leaks in the average residential household can result in more than 10,000 gallons of water lost each year. And that’s just in a single-family home. The annual water loss can be much greater in a large-scale industrial facility.

“It is important that people in this field talk to industrial users and spread the level of education about water loss,” says Rayborn.

Industrial facilities can waste water in a number of ways. It could be something as simple as a flapper stuck in a toilet. It could be an outside irrigation system that was damaged by frost the previous winter. A single leaking faucet can cost industrial users up to one to three gallons of wasted water a day, says Rayborn.

Rayborn says that it is important for the managers of industrial facilities to regularly walk the outside and inside of their facilities. Only by touring their facilities will managers find leaking faucets or signs of water damage that could be a clue that a pipe is leaking inside a wall.

“We usually get a call when clients notice that their water bills are higher,” says Rayborn. “They might notice that their water bill is higher than it was six months ago. They don’t know why, but they know that something is wrong.”

Too often, WaterSignal workers discover that facility managers, even after noticing a higher water bill, still haven’t taken that all-important long walk around their properties.

“It’s always a bit surprising when we see that they aren’t attuned to their site,” says Rayborn. “Their facility managers aren’t walking around the building. They don’t get their first red alert that there’s a problem until they get their water bill.”

Before installing a system at a site, WaterSignal workers will take the key step of walking around their clients’ buildings. Even if they are told by managers that there is nothing wrong with the facilities, they’ll make these walks.

Inevitably, they find something wrong, says Rayborn.

“We walk into every room, every bathroom, you name it,” says Rayborn. “We find leaking faucets. We find water damage. We find toilets that are running too long. We find what they often take for granted.”

Rayborn says that industrial users—like all commercial users—will only focus more heavily on water conservation in the near future. That’s because water is becoming such a valuable commodity in so many dry, arid parts of the country.

“Water conservation over the last year to two years is becoming a dominant concern for all users,” says Rayborn. “Water costs are going up. People see water conservation

as a real cost of doing business. They don’t just take it for granted. They realize that they have to do something to conserve water and reduce their water bills. They understand that they can actually have an ROI on their water. Who would have thought?”

Managing Water-Like Inventory
Matt Rose, CEO of Spokane, WA-based water monitoring service Apana, agrees that industrial users are more interested today in tracking their water use. They’re more vigilant, too, in identifying and fixing leaks quickly.

Much of this has to do with the country’s economy. Yes, the national economy is in recovery mode. But many companies are still focused intently on their bottom lines. They’ve learned lessons from the country’s economic slump, and are doing everything they can to reduce their operating costs and operate on leaner budgets.

This includes taking a more active role in monitoring the amount of water their industrial facilities are consuming—and possibly wasting—each year.

“There are normal and abnormal patterns of water usage for every building,” says Rose. “Our job is to capture the patterns of abnormal use and pass that information onto our customers.”

When industrial users sign up to work with Apana, they first install water monitoring sensors in their facilities. The data generated by these monitors is uploaded into the cloud. This information will quickly allow facility managers, owners, and others to discover what Rose calls “waste signatures,” those clues that a facility is suddenly using too much water.

The information that Apana provides is specific too.

“We are not just telling customers that they are using a lot of water,” says Rose. “We use statistics to tell them exactly how much water they are losing.”

Industrial users can then use this data to identify leaks. But even if Apana doesn’t turn up evidence that a facility is leaking water, industrial users can still benefit from the numbers. As Rose says, users can study their water use patterns and make changes—often small ones—to reduce the amount of water they consume.

For example, a facilities manager might call for replacing traditional toilets with low-flush ones. That manager can then study the numbers provided by Apana to determine how much water the building is saving each month. Or maybe that same facility manager can make a slight tweak in the production process of a factory to save thousands of gallons of water a year.

Rose says that customers who work with Apana tend to reduce their water consumption by about 22% a year.

“The savings come from a variety of problems that we help managers identify,” says Rose. “It’s usually split between mechanical and operations waste. We might find some stuck valves. Or maybe we’ll present possible changes to the way a building operates that merit investigation.”

Rose says that commercial users might suffer water loss for a variety of reasons. He says that cooling towers are often a problem. They are notorious for failing, says Rose. Refrigeration issues can result in steady water losses, while factories filled with countless little valves can have multiple leaks at one time. Water softeners can fail, and backwash processes with some filters fail often too.

Presenting clients with raw numbers, though, isn’t enough, says Rose. That’s why Apana works with its clients to analyze the numbers that the company’s water sensors generate.

“Our job is to help them interpret the data, to give them direction,” says Rose. “We want to teach them how water is being consumed within their processes. You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

Apana’s slogan sums up the way that a growing number of industrial users are treating the water their facilities use: manage water like inventory.

“A lot of people view water use as an uncontrollable expense on a spreadsheet,” says Rose. “But you really do have to manage your water. And it is possible to do that, with the right tools and the right information.”

Rose, like others in the water management business, says that he expects a growing number of industrial users to focus on conserving their water, whether that means treating and reusing a larger amount of their wastewater or more actively searching for ways to use less water throughout their factories and warehouses.

“The California drought has put a spotlight on water use,” he says. “We are noticing that many of the larger companies have broad directives to be more efficient with their natural resources. We have always felt that water has been neglected. Generally, it’s been cheaper than other utilities. That tide is changing, though, especially in the last year.”