Águas de Portugal Group Selects Bentley Software to Make Country’s Water and Wastewater Systems More Efficient

Implementation Will Provide Better Decision Making, Forecasting, and Automation, and Substantial Savings from Enhanced Energy Efficiency Are Anticipated

EXTON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced that Águas de Portugal (AdP) Group has selected Bentley’s water software technology to streamline the operation and management of its water and wastewater systems while also making them more efficient and reliable. AdP Group’s water and wastewater collection and treatment systems and water supply networks serve 80 percent of Portugal’s population. Through partnerships with the country’s municipalities, AdP Group is responsible for managing multi-municipal systems, with its top priority being to increase water infrastructure’s performance to service levels that comply with European best practices. Among the many benefits AdP Group expects to achieve from its use of Bentley software is enhanced energy efficiency, including a 2 percent reduction in energy use at one AdP company that would provide annual cost savings of about 160,000 euros.

“Bentley is committed to delivering software tools to operators of water and wastewater networks that give them the ability to improve their operational decisions. Such tools include the powerful WaterObjects.NET technology, which was used in this project to develop the AQUASAFE platform customized to SimTejo’s specific needs.”

The AdP Group companies that have acquired Bentley software include:

• AdP Serviços – This provider of essential support services to the other business units in the AdP Group and their subsidiary companies chose Bentley’s HAMMER, the industry’s #1 transient analysis and water hammer modeling product, to furnish AdP Group companies with transient risk assessment capabilities.
• Águas de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (AdTMAD) – Operating in the North of Portugal, AdTMAD chose Bentley’s WaterGEMS and its SCADAConnect module to conduct water quality simulations and optimize operations to improve energy efficiency. WaterGEMS and SCADAConnect are helping the company achieve its mission of providing the 33 municipalities it serves with continuous water quality while controlling all of the costs associated with its water supply and wastewater sanitation services.
• Saneamento Integrado dos Municípios do Tejo e Trancão (SimTejo) – This concessionary company operates the multi-municipal sanitation system for Tejo and Trancão (the metropolitan region of Lisbon), treating 118 million cubic meters of wastewater per year and serving about 1.5 million people. SimTejo partnered with Hidromod to develop the AQUASAFE platform, which uses Bentley’s SewerGEMS for wastewater collection analysis and design and WaterObjects.NET customization technology, to manage combined sewer overflows in real time. This innovative project received the prestigious International Water Association (IWA) 2012 Honour Award in the Operations and Management category for Europe and West Asia. It also was a finalist in the 2011 Be Inspired Awards competition’s Innovation in Water, Wastewater, and Stormwater Networks category, which had a total of 35 project nominations.

SimTejo was faced with uncontrolled stormwater flows into its sewerage systems, which were causing major flooding problems and enabling large quantities of grit and coarse solids to enter the system. The net result was a very real potential for the functional collapse of the system.

The AQUASAFE platform integrates various software tools in real time to forecast sewer overflows and estuary discharges. SewerGEMS was seamlessly integrated using Bentley’s WaterObjects.NET technology to automate its execution and connect it to real-time data and weather forecasts.

SewerGEMS is being run every 15 minutes with updated measured rainfall as well as rainfall forecasts from an operational meteorological model acquired daily via FTP. It provides a 24-hour forecast of flows, velocity, water levels and pump behavior in the drainage network, land overflows, incoming flows to the wastewater treatment plant, and discharges to the Tagus estuary – all without user intervention.

Pedro Povoa, R&D project manager at SimTejo, said, “Our AQUASAFE system has been online since February 2011 and has been providing constant and accurate forecasts to the management and operational teams of SimTejo. With a maximum time of 15 minutes to detect and alert abnormal behaviors on flow meters – which account for our municipal clients’ incoming flows – this project had a direct impact on company revenues.”

Povoa continued, “In addition to producing an accurate combined-system overflow and estuary discharge report in five seconds, the new system is expected to achieve 2 percent energy reductions by improving the efficiency of 90 pumping stations. Given that in 2011 the cost of energy for pumping reached almost 8 million euros, this energy reduction represents an annual savings of about 160,000 euros.”

Richard Zambuni, Bentley global marketing director, geospatial and utilities, said, “SimTejo and Hidromod’s impressive technical achievement with AQUASAFE illustrates the way in which hydraulic and hydrologic modeling is moving into the control room. This trend ultimately helps utilities better plan for appropriate operational responses, because the hydraulic models give operators insight into the problems their networks might face in the near future.”

Zambuni continued, “Bentley is committed to delivering software tools to operators of water and wastewater networks that give them the ability to improve their operational decisions. Such tools include the powerful WaterObjects.NET technology, which was used in this project to develop the AQUASAFE platform customized to SimTejo’s specific needs.”

For additional information about Bentley’s water and wastewater network analysis and design software products, visit www.bentley.com/WaterSoftware. For additional information about AQUASAFE, visit www.bentley.com/SimTejo.

About Águas de Portugal Group

The AdP Group is a leader in Portugal’s environmental sector. Its mission is to contribute to the pursuit of national objectives in the water supply, wastewater sanitation and treatment, and recovery of waste, within a framework of economic, financial, technical, social, and environmental sustainability.

AdP Group’s goal is to protect and value the natural and human environment. The activities of its companies include water collection, treatment, storage and supply, while following the highest of quality patterns; the collection, treatment, and disposal of urban and industrial wastewater, including its recycling and reuse in an environmentally safe manner; and waste treatment and recovery. For additional information about the AdP Group, visit www.adp.pt.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley Systems applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has grown to over 3,000 colleagues in more than 45 countries and over $500 million in annual revenues. Since 2003, the company has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

Additional information about Bentley is available at www.bentley.com and in Bentley’s annual report. For Bentley news as it happens, subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, access Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure publications. To access a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit Be Communities.

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