Published on Oct 31, 2023
Harnessing Wastewater for Global Climate Resilience

I. Background to the water crisis

Today, freshwater is scarce: 21 Indian cities are predicted to run out of groundwater in 2023, and 54 percent of the country faces severe water stress. Moreover, this situation is not unique to India; other emerging markets also face similar challenges. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the effects of climate change will be manifested through increasing water scarcity. Since water is critical to our survival, the need for developing sustainable systems to conserve this resource has never been as pressing as it is today.

By treating and recycling wastewater at scale, we could directly meet 60–70 percent of urban water needs and prevent the pollution of freshwater resources. Moreover, the benefits extend beyond conserving water. Recycling treated wastewater can actively contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, in 2021, the exclusive use of recycled treated wastewater for irrigation alone had the potential to reduce India’s greenhouse emissions by 1.3 million tons. Unfortunately, we are far away from being able to accomplish this today. While water treatment plants are becoming more ubiquitous, nearly 75 percent of these plants are dysfunctional even though customers spend significant amounts of capital to maintain their daily performance and minimize inefficiencies.

By treating and recycling wastewater at scale, we could directly meet 60–70 percent of urban water needs and prevent the pollution of freshwater resources.

Our team has interviewed hundreds of plant owners as well as experts, from institutions such as the WASH Institute, to gain a deep understanding of the root causes for water treatment plant inefficiencies. The insights that we gathered pointed towards the fact that the data, expertise, and systems to manage these facilities effectively do not exist on site. On site, operations are managed by low-skill operators who typically learn about problems retrospectively, sometimes weeks after they first arise and often lack the technical knowledge to address these issues. As a result, not only do plant owners incur huge expenses to achieve minimal output, but they also face the risk of penalties and shutdowns since these plants become non-compliant by government operational standards. Moreover, these dysfunctional plants not only consume excessive energy but also produce treated water that cannot be utilised, leading to the continued pressure to extract fresh water (a finite resource) for industrial and commercial use.

II. Digital Paani’s Solution: Technology to unlock wastewater’s potential

We envisioned a solution that would drive operational excellence in these wastewater treatment facilities by empowering low-skilled operators with the expertise needed to manage water operations efficiently.  Digital Paani is an Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled integrated operations platform for wastewater management. We use software and sensors in each unit operation to remotely automate, monitor, and manage facilities while driving complete visibility through communication channels such as WhatsApp.

Our solution manages the entire operations of a plant, based on its actual design and real-time needs, and ensures that every aspect of the plant, including its pumps and blowers, the operator tasks, chemical dosing, or even basic maintenance actions, are executed as per the right technical guidance. We also have a centralised control unit that monitors our target wastewater plants 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. This unit coordinates directly with the operations team to ensure that tasks are being carried out correctly and on time. Therefore, Digital Paani is not only a technology product but also an end-to-end operational management solution to ensure that wastewater plants are managed well and customers achieve their desired efficiency outputs.

Digital Paani’s technology has the ability to detect, diagnose, and send out appropriate instructions to correct the malfunction instantly, such as feeding more biological matter to the reactor.

One example of our solution making an impact on plant operations is how we address a drop in the pH levels in the core reactor, which results from a complex biological reaction. Typically, operators on site do not have the technical ability to resolve this, and personnel outside the site have little visibility until a few weeks pass and the issue begins to impact treated water quality. In such a situation, Digital Paani’s technology has the ability to detect, diagnose, and send out appropriate instructions to correct the malfunction instantly, such as feeding more biological matter to the reactor. Our technology also has the ability to even remotely modify the automation of the equipment, such as the pumps, to ensure the right balance of sewage in the reactor.

Harnessing Wastewater For Global Climate Resilience

This new method of operations has so far shown positive and consistent results, transforming dysfunctional plants into compliant assets while improving water quality and reducing operational costs for customers by up to 41 percent. In another example, one of our plants was 14 years old and prone to frequent issues as a result of operational mismanagement. We detected and supported the operational team in solving several issues such as poor backwash practices that prevented filters from working, choked pumps, ineffectual chlorine dosing, and failed automation. We also streamlined the end-to-end operational process and recommended energy-saving measures at key points of inefficiency. As a result, the plant is now treating and recycling 100 percent of its sewage water. At the same time, operational breakdowns have decreased by 86 percent and energy needs have also reduced by 33 percent, removing at least as much CO2 as 5,500 mature trees. There are 85,000 such facilities in India alone, and this number is growing at 8 percent on an annual basis.

III. Obstacles to scale 

This journey has not been without its challenges. As with any new business, we had to ensure that the product development pace kept up with customer expectations even as R&D costs and timelines were uncertain. We also had to deliver our services, deploy our product, and onboard customers effectively while maintaining a lean team, to conserve cash flow. What has helped us address these challenges was the learnings shared by other early-stage founders in the climate tech space. Additionally, we realised that individual action cannot help manage the water crisis alone; it will take the combined efforts of civil society, the private sector and the public at large to tackle this problem. This means, that even though the government is already making efforts to promote eco-friendly manufacturing to bolster the growth of startups building for a net-zero future, there are a number of further reforms that would add significant value to the sector.

We detected and supported the operational team in solving several issues such as poor backwash practices that prevented filters from working, choked pumps, ineffectual chlorine dosing, and failed automation.

IV. Recommendations to key stakeholders

One example of such a reform is changing procurement norms to enable startups developing sustainable products to receive access to B2B contracts without having to navigate extensive tendering processes. Additionally, while there are more innovation-oriented mentoring programmess and grants being launched, these initiatives largely focus on providing funding to startups for the first few pilot projects only. However, to truly scale up operations, companies need access to long-term capital to invest in building their core technology, strengthening their teams, and developing a differentiated value proposition. We believe that grant funding and other similar programmes should assist companies in scaling up their operations rather than just focusing on individual pilot projects.

V. Conclusion

Our solution therefore presents a remarkable opportunity to aid India in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions and move towards a cleaner and more sustainable future. In five years, we hope to be paving this path by removing as much sewage from water bodies every day as 78 Olympic-sized pools, saving enough fresh water every day to meet the needs of 700,000+ people, and removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as 7 million mature trees. Our eventual vision is to make a substantial and lasting positive impact on our planet’s well-being, and we invite every building and factory looking to be a sustainability leader to join us on this journey.


Mansi Jain is the CEO and Co-Founder of DigitalPaani.

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