Nextergy: Industrial IoT for Water Infrastructure

Context

• Who: Nextergy is an engineering company based in Guayaquil, Ecuador, specializing in electrical, renewable energy, control, and automation projects. Founded in 2018, Nextergy is dedicated to developing scalable and flexible solutions that help businesses digitize, decarbonize, and become energy-efficient.
• What: Nextergy combines IoT technologies with traditional engineering solutions to enhance operational efficiency. Their projects include energy monitoring, predictive maintenance, remote inspections, solar system design, and customized control dashboard integrations.
• How: Nextergy implements tailored solutions that provide real-time monitoring of equipment status, energy consumption, and operational performance. This enables their clients to react faster to incidents, improve decision-making, and reduce operational costs.
• For whom: Nextergy’s solutions cater to industrial and commercial businesses in Ecuador, with a strong focus on utilities, energy distribution, and water management sectors. One of their clients, Interagua, is the main water and sewage service provider in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Problem

Interagua, the company responsible for managing Guayaquil's potable water and sewer systems, faced burdensome challenges in maintaining their vast network of infrastructure. With three water treatment plants, 68 potable water pumping stations, and 102 wastewater pumping stations, their operational efficiency was vital for ensuring uninterrupted service to the city.

However, the absence of remote monitoring capabilities created significant logistical hurdles. When a pump failure occurred, response teams had to be dispatched on-site to diagnose and address the issue. This reactive approach resulted in delayed fault detection and prolonged resolution times. As a result, the risk of sewage overflows increased, threatening service quality and even creating the risk of public health and environmental safety issues.

Beyond the operational risks, this method also imposed higher costs, as technicians spent considerable time traveling between sites, often to address minor issues that could have been prevented or resolved remotely. Interagua needed a solution that could enable real-time monitoring, streamline fault detection, and minimize unnecessary site visits to improve efficiency and reduce operational expenses.

Solution

To address Interagua’s operational challenges, Nextergy designed and deployed a remote management pilot for one of their key pumping stations. The solution integrated energy sensors using Modbus RTU and LoRa communication protocols, leveraging Circutor Pickdata controllers for seamless data acquisition.

At the core of this solution was Ubidots, a cloud-based IoT platform that enabled Nextergy to build and customize solutions tailored to Interagua's needs. Ubidots' intuitive interface allowed Nextergy to deploy robust, industrial-grade dashboards that went beyond visualization, enabling real-time monitoring and optimization of critical operational data.

Through Ubidots, Interagua gained real-time visibility into critical pump station metrics such as motor status, amperage, operating hours, and equipment activity. Additionally, Ubidots' alert system ensured that operators received instant notifications when anomalies occurred, allowing maintenance teams to respond quickly and efficiently.

By reducing the need for on-site inspections and enabling proactive maintenance, the solution minimized operational costs and improved overall service reliability. Nextergy's expertise in integrating sensors and building customized dashboards played a key role in ensuring the solution's success, while Ubidots’ flexibility and scalability ensured that future expansion and additional features could be implemented with ease.

“What we value most about Ubidots is its flexibility and ease of integration, which allows us to quickly connect gateways and sensors across different projects. This gives us the confidence to deliver innovative projects in a short time, ensuring scalable and sustainable long-term solutions for our clients.”

Joselyne Del Rosario, General Manager at Nextergy

Results

The implementation of Ubidots, integrated by Nextergy, delivered tangible improvements for Interagua's operations. By enabling remote monitoring of pumping stations, the solution significantly enhanced efficiency and reduced operational costs.

In this first phase, it is projected that the solution will help Interagua experience a 15% reduction in energy costs, leading to significant savings on their bills. Additionally, by minimizing the need for on-site inspections, the solution can achieve a reduction in working hours of up to 18%, allowing maintenance teams to focus on strategic tasks rather than routine visits.

The transition to a digital monitoring system eliminated paper-based processes, further improving operational efficiency and reducing environmental impact. With real-time data and instant alerts, inspection teams will now be able to respond more quickly to anomalies, reducing the risk of wastewater overflows and enhancing service reliability for the residents of Guayaquil.