Reduce your plant’s energy costs without jeopardising stable operations
Delprosa shows you how to reduce WWTP energy costs using a process simulation configured for your plant. The model shows you how to unlock the latent storage capacity already in your process, where operational set points and schedules can shift load to cheaper periods and smooth peak demand. This is done within the constraints defined by your operation.
Beyond historical load analysis: a process simulation of your plant
Delprosa goes well beyond reviewing historical energy use. We work out what can be achieved under improved plant control. We do this by configuring our simulation model to your plant’s actual process engineering: how your tanks, pumps and blowers behave, alongside your sludge, biosolids and biogas systems, and what capacity is available to shift within constraints to protect treatment performance. The simulation results tells us where a change is possible, how much that change is worth, and how the plant responds by examining key performance parameters.
Based on your needs, we can evaluate three distinct routes to lower your energy costs, each quantified against your real plant, not a generic model.
The first step is to configure and validate the WWTP simulation model to your plant specifics. An advanced controller is then designed using forecasts of inflow, load and weather conditions, applied against the relevant price signal, to adjust operating setpoints and schedules. For example, can energy intensive processes be deferred to times when energy is cheaper, or can operations be scheduled to reduce the peak demand.
The simulation compares the controlled operation against your baseline, so you can quantify the savings in your business case before implementing it. Three pathways capture that saving, explained below.
Three routes to lower energy costs, quantified by one simulation
You’re in control of which route you choose, and Delprosa can help you select which one best suits your circumstances.
1. Tariff Optimisation
We show you the operational changes available within your existing retail contract. No change to your risk position, no change to your retailer relationship. Just a better timed operation against the tariff you’re already on, with the analysis and recommendations in your hands.
2. Alternate Tariffs
We model how your plant would perform under alternative tariff structures, so a competing retail offer is compared against your real operating pattern, not a headline rate. Still no exposure to wholesale price movements, and the decision to switch stays entirely yours.
3. Demand Response
For clients wanting to go further, we build the business case for moving some or all load onto the wholesale spot market, with process scheduling designed to capture the opportunity without compromising treatment. This is the only route of the three that changes your exposure to price volatility, and we walk you through exactly what that would mean for your plant.
This is about using energy at the right time.
Energy efficiency and price responsive control are complementary, but they are not the same thing. Our approach to controlling energy focuses on shifting load in time, aligned to market conditions, and validated against your plant’s specific operating constraints. This is where the simulation model provides the insight required to understand the response of the plant as a whole.
About when, not just how much
Energy efficiency reduces how much energy a process uses. Our approach is different: we make a shift in when energy is used, leveraging the storage capacity in your treatment process to move load to cheaper periods without reducing treatment performance.
Aligned to market conditions
Rather than optimising equipment in isolation, the simulation aligns your plant’s operation with wholesale prices, demand charges and tariff structures, capturing value from the timing of energy use as well as the volume.
Simulated against your specific plant
The business case is built from a model of your actual plant, its pumps, tanks, process constraints and control logic, not from industry averages or generic load profiles.
Credible cost savings
Built on extensive experience across energy-intensive industries, the simulation delivers outputs you can act on with confidence.
Validated against your plant data
Calibrated and verified using your actual operational data so results reflect real plant behaviour.
Transparent forecast of cost and operation
A detailed forecast of how your plant would operate and what it would cost, with every assumption visible.
Savings quantified with price sensitivity
The saving is calculated hour by hour and tested against price volatility so the business case holds up.
Within your operational constraints
Operation stays within the constraints your operators specify, so treatment standards are never compromised.
Historic usage shows how the plant was controlled. The simulation shows how much could be saved.
Your historic energy data only records how the plant was actually operated, under whatever control regime was in place at the time. It doesn’t show what was possible. The simulation takes the same plant, the same process constraints, and the same treatment targets, then applies price responsive control. This gives a like for like comparison, based on real data rather than assumptions, so the savings shown reflect what your plant could have achieved. The visualiser shows how the plant would be controlled under the price responsive scheme, so you see the operation behind the numbers, not just the results.
For a treatment plant owner or operator, that distinction carries real weight. A recommendation based on how the plant historically operated misses out on finding the improvements. The simulation is a timelapse digital twin of your process over an extended period. It applies price responsive control to the physics and chemistry of your plant so you can see how it will actually respond and what are the benefits. Proceeding then becomes a considered decision, rather than an assumption.
Compared against your baseline, not an assumed percentage
The saving is the difference between how the plant runs today and how it would run under the price responsive controller, quantified hour by hour across a full year of operation.
A visualiser that shows how the plant would be controlled, not just the numbers
You can see the setpoints, schedules and process responses that the controller would use, so the business case is based on something you can inspect and interrogate.
A transparent forecast of cost and operation you can inspect before committing
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.
Assessing a capital investment
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. The case for those assets rests on the capacity they add: generation and storage that can be used for peak shaving and retail arbitrage, with wholesale market dispatch available as a further option for plants that want it. The simulation quantifies that benefit in the same model, alongside everything else that can be shifted. Where a case supports moving ahead, Delprosa can help deliver the engineering design and project management through to commissioning.
Industrial experience, applied to wastewater treatment
Dr Rickey Donald has worked across energy-intensive industries for decades, including water treatment, chemicals, oil and gas, minerals, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages production, and more recently in clean tech and energy. For clients, that breadth is a practical advantage: the simulation captures 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, such as 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. The same method applies beyond wastewater to any plant with flexible, controllable load, such as pumping, compression, refrigeration and batch processing, so if you operate outside water and wastewater, it is worth a conversation to see what can be achieved.
Why a simulation is needed
Market information and price alerts tell you when electricity is expensive. A simulation of your plant tells you what you can actually do about it, and what it is worth. The saving is calculated from your plant’s specific response, not drawn from market averages or industry benchmarks.
Models the actual plant response to price
The simulation works from your pump curves, tank volumes, process constraints and control logic. That means the response to a price signal is the real physical response of your plant, not a generic load profile.
Shows the numbers behind the business case
Annual saving, hourly cost profiles, demand charge impacts, all with the assumptions visible, so the saving is provable before anything changes, not an estimate drawn from historical analysis or market monitoring.
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.