Cleaning the sewer using AI
The sewage of around a million people will be cleaned even better with the help of artificial intelligence
The sewage treatment plant at Slemmestad in Asker is Norway’s largest. 3,000 liters of sewage flow in here per second. After three and a half hours, at least 70 percent of the nitrogen and 90 percent of the phosphorus in the sewage have been removed, and the rest can be discharged into deep water in the Inner Oslofjord. Traditionally, this process is managed by experienced operators who monitor the treatment process and make necessary adjustments. They are still there, but now they are also assisted by artificial intelligence, so-called AI
Complicated process
The treatment process takes place in three stages. First, the water is filtered to remove waste and objects. Every day, the plant separates two tons of waste from the sewage. The sewage is then chemically treated by adding chemicals that cause the particles in the sewage to sink to the bottom. The sludge is collected and processed into fertilizer and biogas, while the water continues into a biological treatment that removes nitrogen.
The process requires a multitude of measuring points, valves, heating and pumps. A total of 15,000 objects in the plant have sensors that send information to the control room.
Development Engineer Hilde Johansen explains:
– Every nine seconds we receive 60,000 signals from the process. It goes without saying that such amounts of data cannot be handled manually. But with the help of artificial intelligence we can find out what affects the result, and we can predict what will happen before it happens! With a chemicals budget of NOK 60 million a year, there is a lot of money to save if you know when the particle content is about to decrease, and can thus use less chemicals.
TV 2 was present when the relatively new Minister for Digitalization, Karianne Tung (Labour Party), visited the facility last week. The Minister’s ambition is for as many businesses as possible to adopt artificial intelligence as soon as possible.
– The goal is for 80 percent of public sector activities to use AI, and the potential is also enormous in the process industry and other large areas in the private sector, says Tung.
The wastewater company Veas, which handles the sewage in the Inner Oslofjord, has great ambitions to develop more and better products using artificial intelligence in the future. Sewage can be a raw material for the production of CO 2 for industry and peat-free plant fertilizer, and plans are already in place to further develop the production.
CEO of Innovation Norway, Håkon Haugli, is not at all afraid that the new technology will make employees redundant.
Automation
– Not at all! We should automate what can be automated. Norway needs all the labour we can get. By automating and using artificial intelligence, we can free up people for more important tasks, he believes. At Veas, artificial intelligence is currently used to support operators in the control room, but the long-term goal is for AI to control the entire process, at least at times of day when there are few employees in the facility.
– Here at Veas, we use AI to make the process more efficient. You don’t have to rely on gut feeling and experience, and you save money. What’s more, we get a better Oslofjord and cleaner water. That’s great for everyone, says Minister of Digitalization Karianne Tung.