GE Intelligent Platforms (NYSE:GE) announced the signing of a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) focusing on connecting dissimilar data sources into a software-based platform that improves decision making capabilities across a water system. The solution is expected to increase the effectiveness of a distribution network for the delivery of better quality water while potentially using 10% to 15% less energy.

“The availability of safe, reliable drinking water has proven to be the foundation of sustainable economic and cultural growth in every society in history,” said Alan Hinchman, Global Industry Manager Water/Wastewater for GE Intelligent Platforms. “With this agreement, GE and the U.S. EPA will work with third parties to create a sensor-based, data-driven, and software-assisted system for drinking water distributions. The goal would be to optimize water quality improvement and minimize energy usage. By doing so, the product could assist water utilities and other end users with ‘greener’ distribution network operations and enhanced regulatory compliance.”

The U.S. EPA regulates drinking water quality under the 1974 landmark legislation, Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The legislation resulted in continuing research in the areas of modeling, monitoring, and engineering control on water quality changes, network design and operations.

“The U.S. municipal water industry collectively consumes 4% of the total U.S. power generation,” said Thomas Speth, Acting Division Director for NRMRL’s Water Supply and Water Resources Division in Cincinnati. “Therefore one of the goals of this CRADA is to reduce energy consumption by 10% to 15%, which will have a positive impact on reducing green house gas emissions. Also since electrical generation is the largest water user in the U.S., the reduction in demand would help better manage water resources.”

The project seeks to transfer past and ongoing R&D results, as well as intellectual properties of all of the parties, into real-world applications. These technological advances will be further developed and integrated with proprietary technologies that GE and PDA Design, a Greer, South Carolina-based green technology think tank and solution provider, have related to sensor networking, wireless and wire-based multi-platform data communication protocols, real-time process equipment control, data warehousing and mining technologies. Further integration and development, implemented by these parties, will be focused on energy reduction and water quality protections.

“Today’s U.S. water system is running on aging, disparate technology and a crumbling infrastructure that experts predict is in need of $600B in replacements and repairs,” said Hinchman. “Since most utilities expanded and automated over a 30-year period while technology was rapidly advancing, many were left with a combination of different automation equipment creating an environment for information silos that make it impossible to share information with plant operators.”

It is the intent of thisCRADA to develop a cost effective commercially viable solution for predictive real-time energy and quality monitoring/control platform in municipal drinking water distribution. The solution will feature:

——Open communication architecturesfeaturing Ethernet networking for high availability and bandwidth to transfer large amounts of information or quickly stream small amount of data frequently.

——Support of mixed systemsfor interconnection with existing equipment and to allow for stage deployment or upgrades.

——Scalable deploymentemploying a building block method of interconnecting software and hardware product that offer their own value equation individually and large value collectively, will allow for faster market acceptance.

——Sensible node costto maximize the value of the technology and leverage numerous methods of data collection including simple data collectors and low cost instrumentation. Software calculation functionality will also allow for the approximation of missing data sources.

——Dual purposingto ensure drinking water quality at a decrease cost. Energy savings and water quality are linked and must both be controlled and monitored per US EPA standards. To achieve this both energy and water quality are to be monitored and controlled.

As a leader in the Water industry, GE’s Proficy software and PACSystems controllers will be at the heart of the technology solution which is expected to go into pilot testing in late 2010. Proficy is an example of how GE’s $4 billion-a-year software and solutions services businesses are helping customers improve productivity.