With last week’s MPC-Buoy project installation in Uruguay, a new country of algae management projects was added to the list for LG Sonic. At the moment LG Sonic is running MPC-Buoy projects in 24 countries on six continents (only Antarctica seems a difficult market). This shows the massive environmental issue algal blooms have become over the last few years.
24 countries in 6 continents
In Uruguay, MPC-Buoy will monitor and control algal blooms in an irrigation reservoir used for agriculture. Over the years, MPC-Buoy has been installed in various other applications such as drinking water reservoirs, recreational lakes and cooling ponds of power generation facilities. Climate change has a great impact on the occurrence of algal blooms. The increasing temperatures cause an increase in the frequency and intensity of algal blooms. When these blooms are toxic (cyanobacteria), they threaten human health by contaminating drinking water sources. Concerns over health risks and environmental impacts of biological contaminants and chemicals cause utilities to seek a technological solution for their algal bloom problems. Climate change is making algal blooms worse because of rising ocean temperatures, which results in longer lasting toxic outbreaks in the ocean itself but also connected waterways.
By implementing MPC-Buoy in their treatment programs, utilities are able to treat water sources such as raw water reservoirs used for drinking water purposes. Real-time monitoring allows treatment operators to have insights into the water quality 24/7. LG Sonic will use this data to adapt the ultrasonic treatment of algal blooms to specific algal species such as cyanobacteria. Top-level customers such as American Water, EPM, Watercare and the Dubai Municipality all chose MPC-Buoy over the usage of potentially harmful chemicals. By incorporating MPC-Buoy in its water treatment process, EPM completely replaced the need to chemically treat its raw water reservoirs, allowing the company to reduce treatment and operational costs while gaining real-time insights into water quality by using the monitoring software MPC-View.