Purecontrol is a unique solution exploding artificial intelligence to significantly reduce operational costs, carbon footprint and optimize operations for manufacturers, water companies and renewable energy players. Deployed on over 150 sites, the solutions have already proven its efficiency on processes thanks to real-time control systems.
The solution is easily integrated and controls the industrial installations in an optimal way by adjusting to complex and dynamic environments (production, weather forecast, population evolution, equipment behavior…)
Interview with Loïc Croissant, Innovation Director, Purecontrol.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Loïc Croissant: Purecontrol solution can apply to any existing use case, as long as an automation system is used in the industry. So far, Purecontrol is mainly optimizing the wastewater treatment processes, and is currently expanding on the overall water lifecycle (pumping, storage, drinking water…).
We also are working on new applications of the solution in the industry: methanisation, agri-food, renewable energy… With always the same objectives of reducing the energy consumption and carbon footprint of production processes.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
L.C: The core of the product still remains almost the same, but there is a lot of evolution regarding the applications. We recently delivered a module which allows Purecontrol to easily decrease indirect greenhouse gases emissions linked to electricity consumption of a process. By making predictions about the evolution of GHG impact factor of electricity for an area, and using it at the same time as predictions of other key parameters (process quality, process costs), Purecontrol solution is now able to anticipate and continuously adapt the process, in particular by making shifting of all or part of the process.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
L.C: Purecontrol provides a complete solution to collect the industrial data, automatically analyze it and do real-time remote control of processes. The solution can be split in 3 products:
- PureConnect, an interactive and customizable dashboard to show reports
- PureAnalytics, to analyze the plant data (energy management, anomaly detection, weather forecast…)
- PurePilot, to send automated, optimized and real-time commands
Using all 3 products, the solution is able to find and apply the best control system strategy to reduce the energy consumption, and optimize the processes.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
L.C: The industrial automation market is strongly expanding, but still needs a strong knowledge and a lot of time to configure the industrial processes with standard tools. However, this market is widely open to innovations (industry 4.0, IoT, IA…), with solutions helping with more and more complex tasks, and adaptable to any new industries. These innovations are necessary to simplify the processes, and make it more accessible while the qualified workforce is decreasing and constraints are increasing. This market evolution encourages companies’ interests into automation solutions to stay competitive and improve their processes.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
L.C: We all hear about climate change and initiatives that have to be taken. The government also set up more and more environmental objectives, which pushes companies to start working on tackling these challenges. Consume less energy, use less carbon intensive electricity, ensure environmental compliance… These trends are not only more popular, they are unavoidable. The market benefits from a favorable environment, in particular thanks to the support measures put in place by the public authorities to assist manufacturers in modernizing and automating their factories, which has led to an increase in environmental investments by companies.
Recent increasing energy prices is also a strong leverage which motivates the market to implement solutions able to optimize consumption.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
L.C: PurePilot is the most innovative product, simply because there’s currently no equivalent to our solution in terms of simplicity of the installation, methodology and results. This solution is replicable on any industry that is equipped by a PLC (Programming Logic Controller), which is not the case of other solutions that are provided to reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint. The core value of the product is based on mixing artificial intelligence and real time control, allowing Purecontrol to do quick and significant optimizations. While the main other products in this field just identify optimizing leverages, which will be activated by operators, or not.
E.E: What estimations do you have for the rest of 2022?
L.C: The last months have been crucial for Purecontrol’s growth, and it’s only the beginning. Our solution is starting to prove its added value, and has already convinced major water management leaders in France. They will systematically deploy our solution on their plants, and new areas of application are being evaluated for the water management in its entirety. Purecontrol is starting to develop the solution for other industries in France, and is in discussion to deploy abroad (Spain, UK, Switzerland, India).