How Aegea Modernized Sanitation Infrastructure With Digital Twins

Controlling water and sewage utilities in 489 municipalities in Brazil, Aegea is committed to improving sanitation processes through advanced technology and digitization. Using digital twin technology and reality modeling software, Aegea modernized water and wastewater infrastructure management across Rio de Janeiro. Their goal was to facilitate network modernization to ensure access to clean water for over 30 million people. Aligned with these goals, they launched their intelligent infrastructure program, Infra Inteligente, to create a virtual environment, digitally mapping the structures that they operate. The program will help with preventing problems, reducing expenses, and ensuring operational efficiencies. Its objective is to identify and verify all physical assets of Aegea’s sanitation operation, providing an opportunity to deliver better services and improve the quality of the water in Guanabara Bay, supporting the environment, society, and sustainability. “The initiative focuses on comprehending and understanding the assets, the whole infrastructure, to determine which assets we need to deal with to be more efficient and increase the availability and quality of our services,” said Wagner Oliveira de Carvalho, engineer and senior project manager at Aegea.

As part of this smart digitization program, Aegea implemented Brazil’s largest asset inventory project in Rio de Janeiro, covering water and sewage treatment plants, pump stations, tanks, and other assets spread across 27 municipalities. With a focus on preventive maintenance and modernization of the sanitation infrastructure, Aegea invested BRL 10 million to create a true 3D digital map of Rio de Janeiro’s sanitation facilities, providing a real-time view of sanitation assets from any location. “These actions ensure security to concession contracts in the regulatory aspect, bringing greater availability of services to the population and assertiveness in operations, with a real-time view of the structures from anywhere in the world by Aegea’s team of experts,” said Carvalho. The digital roadmap streamlines decision-making and ensures that the population receives essential life services, including 24/7 access to clean water.

Overcoming Surveying And Asset Mapping Challenges Across Rio de Janeiro

Improving and modernizing old assets is a challenge that requires using technologies to capture the current condition and variability of the assets, replacing previously manual efforts. “Given the continental dimensions of our country, digital management and logistics are key issues for us,” said Carvalho. Aegea wanted to establish a virtual asset environment; however, they needed to capture and integrate assets scattered throughout the city, most of them buried. “In Rio de Janeiro, the initial estimated number of plants was 900 plants, but we found more than 1,300, of which 300 were found in low-income areas,” Carvalho said. With more than 29,000 physical assets at 1,317 industrial plants, the sheer size of the project involved coordinating 70 multidiscipline specialists amid a tight schedule to complete the 211,000 survey works and 3D modeling in Rio de Janeiro.

Adding to the project’s complexity was the topology of the city. Rio de Janeiro has a varying topography with mountains, hills, and rocks, resulting in difficulties when surveying the plants and assets. Also, with the water source at the low point and the communities located at the high point, Aegea needed to ensure that their pumps were operating, treating the water, and transporting the water through the thousands of kilometers of pipeline to the population. To optimize their asset operations, they realized that they had to capture and share data in real time through digital surveying and monitoring to create accurate digital twins of their sanitation infrastructure.