Host: Travis Loop
Guest: Jamail Carter | Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer | Varuna
Category: 🌐 Digital
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[11:55] “[The] problem in the water space […] is visibility beyond the water treatment plant. So often we talk about [that] the water utility knows exactly what's happening at their water treatment plant, especially as it relates to water quality. But that lack of visibility and that lack of awareness really dissipates as the water is released into the distribution system at different points throughout that distribution system. […] So that's a first order problem that we set out to solve.”
[13:57] “Let's say that water is treated with some kind of disinfectant at the water treatment plant. Once it's released from that water treatment plant, it may travel […] 40 miles to an endpoint in their distribution system. And so they want to know if I've treated this water with let's say, chlorine disinfectant at the water treatment plant, is that disinfectant making its way to the end of my distribution system. And if it's not, then I need to investigate why. Typically, what they've done is they've sent someone out to take grab samples across their distribution system to measure different parameters, such as chlorine residuals, ph turbidity, conductivity, and it's an inefficient process. […] So we set out to actually use IoT, place these sensors out at different points in their distribution system, so they can always know what's going on.”
[16:05] “There's a big efficiency play. […] [If utilities] are thinking about some type of […] capex purchase, maybe they want to buy flushers to place somewhere in their distribution system, […] they want to know trends of water quality at certain points. […] We deploy some sensors and a certain area for a few weeks or a month anywhere in our distribution system, so we can understand not only water quality, but in some cases, water behavior, and that helps them determine how many flushes they need to buy, where they need to place them. […] Another one is the amount of dosing we can influence by giving them that information in terms of how much chlorine do you need? Is there a leak somewhere?”
[18:41] “One of the parameters we measure is turbidity. And so if we were able to alert the utility that your turbidity has increased in this area, they'll know before the customer knows. And so before they get these calls […] where customers […] are complaining that their water is cloudy, they can address that and be more proactively, […] and in some cases, maybe even prevent those calls […]. So I absolutely believe and know that it will help the utility provide better information or not better information and better service to the customer.”
[26:15] “The future of IoT is bright. But there's some uninspiring things that are happening too, which is people are […] using data to provide point solutions. And so we're not taking this real time data to fundamentally change the future of water and to use this data for a fundamental redesign of how our water system works. That's something that we're not doing currently, as an industry, and I'm talking about water, specifically, not just IoT across several different industries. So, […] I hope as an industry, we don't we don't miss this […] game changing opportunity.”
Rating: 💧💧
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify
🕰️ 39 min | 🗓️ 07/15/2021
✅ Time saved: 37 min
