By combining localized biological treatment with real-time operational visibility, Calcamite is making decentralized wastewater treatment more scalable and sustainable across Africa. Working with 4Sight, the South African water and sanitation company deployed CONNECT and Edge Hardware by Schneider Electric to remotely monitor decentralized treatment plants and unify operational oversight across its expanding network, helping bring modern sanitation infrastructure to off-grid and underserved communities.
“Imagine you can multiply that effect with a thousand. That is the vision. It's absolutely to scale it and to enable development in communities that would not have had it. It is going to be game changing.”
—Sebasti Badenhorst
Chief Operating Officer, Calcamite
Challenges
- Manual, reactive operations with no real-time visibility
- Limited ability to monitor treatment performance and demonstrate compliance
- Inadequate wastewater infrastructure in rural communities caused water contamination, public health risks, and pollution
Solution
- Used CONNECT integrated with Edge Hardware by Schneider Electric to deploy a scalable, edge-to-cloud infrastructure and create a single source of truth
Results
- Centralized plant network monitoring in a single dashboard
- Automated alerts enable proactive intervention, reducing downtime
- Reporting provides proof of flow performance and regulatory adherence
- Reduced energy consumption, pumping requirements, and the need for high-carbon bulk infrastructure
- In five months, the pilot plant recovered over 2000 m³ of water, 63 kilograms of nitrate, 6.3 kilograms of phosphates, and reduced CO₂ by 30 tons
- Reduced 85% of maintenance costs by eliminating the need to send technicians to remote sites
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