Energy strategy for wastewater treatment plants

Reduce your plant’s energy costs without jeopardising stable operations

Delprosa builds a validated simulation of your treatment plant — written from decades of wastewater process design and operations knowledge — and runs it against the real wholesale market and your retail tariff. The simulation incorporates an advanced control algorithm of the operating plant, so energy cost savings are quantified under that control and compared with your current operating strategy, before you commit to anything. It also includes a visualiser of the process, so you can see how the plant would be controlled.

What you get before you commit

  • A simulation built on wastewater process knowledge, validated against your own data
  • A transparent forecast of the cost — and of the operation
  • Savings quantified, with sensitivity to price volatility
  • The treatment process is protected, and operators stay in control
Relevant experience
Energy-intensive industry and water treatment — the process engineering the wastewater simulation is built on
Solid research
Published research into integrated energy and wastewater systems underpins the approach
Built for wastewater
The simulation is written specifically for wastewater treatment plants
Independent
Delprosa takes no revenue share and no commission — so there is no incentive to inflate the expected benefits
Three ways to approach your energy strategy

One simulation. Three routes to lower energy costs.

Energy is one of the largest controllable costs at a treatment plant. Every route starts the same way: an assessment of your plant, then a validated simulation of it.

Demand Response

Open to wholesale spot price exposure? We assess the business case for moving some or all of your load onto the spot market, and design the pump scheduling to capture the opportunity without compromising treatment.

Explore Demand Response →

Tariff Optimisation

Want to improve on your current tariff without changing it? We find the operational changes available within your existing retail contract — so you capture savings without changing your risk position.

Explore Tariff Optimisation →

Alternate Tariffs

Weighing up a new retail offer? We model how your plant would perform under alternative tariff structures, so you compare offers on realistic operating outcomes rather than headline rates.

Explore Alternate Tariffs →

Why the simulation matters

Historic usage tells part of the story. The simulation tells the full story.

Solar PV and battery storage connected to the grid, with the model equations

Your energy cost is set by the pattern of electricity use across the plant — and that pattern is set by how the plant is controlled. A high-level average, or a look at historic usage, only tells part of the story: it shows how the plant ran under the control strategy it had at the time, not what it could achieve under a control strategy designed to minimise energy cost. By overlaying that advanced control scheme inside a validated simulation of the plant, Delprosa shows the full story of what is possible — and quantifies the savings with far more certainty than generic analysis.

01

Modelled as an operating plant, not a simplified load

Generic simulation platforms treat the plant as a simplified load rather than a full operating system — so a change that looks good on one part of the process can quietly create a problem somewhere else.

02

Grounded in how treatment plants actually work

The simulations use the same process engineering fundamentals used to design and operate treatment plants, underpinned by research into integrated energy and wastewater systems.

03

A transparent, plant-specific forecast

The recommendation comes with a forecast of what will actually happen across the operation as a whole, not just to the energy cost — so you see the trade-offs before you commit to a change.

Considering new equipment?

Any of the three routes can be extended into a CAPEX Business Case Assessment — testing whether new or larger assets such as pumps, blowers, storage, solar PV, batteries or cogeneration would strengthen the outcome. Where a case supports moving ahead, Delprosa delivers the engineering design and project management through to commissioning.

Explore the CAPEX assessment →

About Delprosa

Decades of industrial experience — now focused on wastewater

Process flow diagram of an integrated hydrogen and wastewater treatment plant
From Delprosa research: integrated hydrogen production and wastewater treatment — process flow diagram.

Dr Rickey Donald has worked across energy-intensive industries for decades — steel, minerals, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food and packaging manufacturing, oil and gas, and water treatment — and more recently in clean tech and energy monitoring. For clients, that breadth is a practical advantage: the simulation reflects how real industrial processes respond to changes in operation, so recommendations hold up in practice, not just on paper. It shapes every assumption inside the model — how pumps and blowers behave under partial load, how much flexibility digestion and process storage genuinely offer, and where the limits of safe operation sit — rather than treating the plant as a simplified load.

A wastewater focus, by design

Most of Delprosa’s expertise — and the current version of the simulation — is written specifically for wastewater treatment plants. That is where the operational detail is deepest and the model is at its most accurate.

The same method applies elsewhere

The approach extends to any plant with flexible, controllable load — pumping, compression, refrigeration, batch processing. If you operate outside water and wastewater, it is worth a conversation rather than assuming this is water-specific.

The real differentiator

The model is built on how treatment plants actually work

The strength of the Delprosa approach is not the software. It is decades of design and operations knowledge of wastewater treatment processes — and the simulation model is built on exactly that knowledge. It starts from the plant, not the market.

Built for wastewater treatment

Pumping, blower control, digestion and generation are modelled as the operating system they are.

The plant sets the limits

What can safely be deferred is set by treatment performance and operating constraints — before any savings figure is discussed.

Process understanding, not a target percentage

The business case is built from the plant outward — never backwards from a target savings figure.

You stay in control of the engagement

Retail negotiation — led by you

You hold the commercial relationship, and Delprosa stays independent — so negotiating with your retailer is something you lead. Delprosa supports those discussions where useful, without ever becoming the intermediary.

Control system integration — your choice

Implementation is approached however you prefer. Many clients mandate their trusted integrator, and Delprosa works with any integrator you choose. You can project-manage the implementation yourself, or hand it to Delprosa as part of a delivery engagement.

The first step is a plant assessment

It tells you quickly whether there is a case worth building — and which of the three routes fits your circumstances. It is the same first step under every engagement.