Funded Projects | sino-dip.dk

Smart Energy Management for Water Supply

A groundbreaking Danish-Chinese initiative is tackling one of urban water supply’s biggest hidden drains: the 70% of energy consumed by inefficient pumps. Financed by the Danish Energy Agency and running in eastern China, this project deploys REMONI’s optimization dashboards and EWA Sensors’ real-time online monitoring technology to slash electricity use without disrupting operations. Aligned with China’s 2030 carbon peak goal, the partnership also includes the Sino-Danish Industry Platform and Tongji University, supporting the Green Joint Work Programme (2023–2026) while building a market-entry reference case for sustainable solutions.

From April 28 to May 7, 2026, the installation team fitted non-invasive sensors at a booster station and a water plant in Tongling and Suzhou, in collaboration with local partners Beijing Capital Eco-Pro Group and Suzhou Water Supply, respectively. Today, the online monitoring systems are running smoothly, capturing real-time data across load variations and peak demand periods.

But the true value lies beyond the numbers. By answering critical questions—How closely does operation follow control logic? Where are hidden inefficiencies? How do pumps interact under changing conditions?—the project transforms raw data into actionable intelligence. Non-invasive measurements combined with smart analytics make complex systems transparent, revealing opportunities for both energy savings and predictive maintenance. As data collection continues, this initiative not only demonstrates tangible efficiency gains but also strengthens green collaboration between Denmark and China, paving the way for smarter, more sustainable urban water management worldwide.

Digital Water Mangement

This project is aiming to integrate a Danish digital and smart water systems into the China’s urban development strategies, supporting dual‑carbon goals and the digital economy. The goal is to enhance efficiency across the water cycle—reducing leakage, cutting energy use, improving flood control, and optimizing treatment processes—while enabling integrated management from source to outlet. Common challenges include poor data quality, under‑utilized data (often limited to display rather than application), and fragmented platform development.

Since 2001, ARTOGIS has partnered with Danish specialists to advance digital solutions, helping position Denmark as a leader in water and environmental protection. Experience shows that big‑data management enables sustainable, cost‑effective decisions. ARTOGIS’s sago•fonto® platform (中英文介绍）is already deployed across 30+ Danish utilities with positive feedback.

Funded by the Nopef program, Sino-Danish Industrial Platform worked closely with ARTOGIS from 2023 to 2025, actively engaging with relevant Chinese authorities and utilities throughout the process. Together with Danish technology providers—offering leakage detection, valves, sensors, etc.—the project has built a tailored sensing network, a shared data system, and automated controls to support precise, intelligent decision‑making for Chinese partners.

Partnership Project on Water in China

In 2023, Jingquan Lu/Sino-DIP was hired as full-time expert consultant for the Partnership Project on Water in China.

The objective of the Partnership Project on Water in China is to promote Danish water technology to the Chinese water stakeholders, maintain and create new connections between large Chinese water companies and Danish suppliers to push sales, by involving Chinese and Danish experts as well as the Danish utilities. Through this, we supported the Chinese utilities in living up to the strict requirements in the 14th Five-Year Plan on CO2 emissions and water savings.

In this project, we conducted two delegation visits to China. We visited the Chinese local water utilities of Yantai Drainage, Beijing Drainage, Shenzhen Water, GDH Water, Guangzhou Water Investment, Shaoxing Water, Hangzhou Water, Suzhou Water, Nantong Water, Wuxi Water, Nanjing Water, Guozhen Environment, and Wuhan Water.

The Danish companies, Danfoss, Grundfos, AVK, Landia, ARTOGIS, Unisense Environment, Alfa Laval, and EWA Sensors participated the delegation visits in China.

The Partnership Project on Water in China was financed by Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Danish Export Association, the Danish Trade Council in China, and the Danish Ministry of Environment are the partners of the project.

U-S-E Water Project

In 2020-2022, Jingquan Lu/Sino-DIP was hired as full-time strategic partnership consultant for the U-S-E Water Project, which was a coordinated and long-term approach to cultivate, build, and strengthen relations between relevant actors in Denmark and in China to benefit both parties. This model for building partnerships and offering e.g. knowledge and contacts aimed to increase the sales of Danish water technology to China.

In this project, we visited, among the others, Beijing Enterprises Water Group, Beijing Capital Water, Thunip Environment, CSD Water, Penyao Environment, Shenzhen Water, and Shanghai Chengtou Water, which are the main market players in the water sector in China. The Danish companies, such as Danfoss, Grundfos, AVK, Hoyer Moters, Wurth, Per Aarsleff, Landia, UtralAqua, Hempel, Novozymes, Stjernholm, KD Group, Kamstrup, BactiQuant, Lobster participated the activities during this project. The project achieved very good results. We have established more than 40 Chinese connections (incl. EPCs, utilities/end users, institutions, and authorities etc.), created a direct sale of more than 18 million DKK for the participating Danish companies, and further analysed 5 of the partners' WWTPs, where huge upgrade potential has been found.

This project was financially supported by the Danish Industry Foundation, operated by the Danish Export Association, and with VCS Denmark, Shanghai Association of Environmental Protection Industry, and the Danish Embassy in Beijing as partners.

Midtnet Kina Project

In 2017-2019, Sino-Danish Industry Platform has been under the financial support from the Midtnet Kina Program to make the technology innovation and adaption to meet the demand in the Chinese market. Partners of the project are Sino-Danish Industry Platform, Alcon A/S, Teldust A/S and Aarhus University. We have investigated the requirements by the Chinese legislation on safety and environmental emissions, and the characteristics of the straw biomass and so on. Alcon A/S has modified and improved its straw boiler products, and tested together with university. After integration with the flue gas filter developed by Teldust, the boiler-filter system can have an energy efficiency as high as 88%, and a low dust emission as low as 3 mg/m³. Besides, we have also developed devices for straw bale drying, feeding and ash collection in a dedicated boiler house according to the local conditions in Northeast China. Now the project alliance is looking for a Chinese partner company, which can bring the product to the Chinese market. For further information, please go to the page of Midtnet Kina (中英文介绍).

Organic waste for biogas production

In 2016-2017, Sino-Danish Industry Platform, in collaboration with Beijing Schoneland Environment Technology Co., Ltd. and Zhongshan Municipal Drainage Co., Ltd., has conducted an evaluation of the anaerobic digestion process at the Sludge Treatment Centre in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province.

The facility processes approximately 200 tons of sewage sludge per day (at 20% dry matter content), sourced from four local wastewater treatment plants. The evaluation revealed that the digesters are not operating at the designed temperature. While the target temperature is 35 °C, the actual operating temperature is only 29 °C. This shortfall is primarily attributed to the use of a simplified heating method for the incoming sludge: steam generated by a biogas-fired boiler is used to heat the sludge in a concrete tank, which lacks any form of temperature sensors or control systems. Furthermore, most of the equipment installations are not functioning properly. Drawing on Danish expertise, the Sino-Danish Industry Platform has developed a technical proposal aimed at improving the process performance and operational stability of the facility.

In a separate initiative, the Sino-Danish Industry Platform, together with its Chinese partner Beijing Enterprise Water Group, has launched a large-scale biogas project in Anshan City, China. The project is designed to treat approximately 200 tons of food waste from local restaurants and about 300 tons of sewage sludge (at 20% dry matter content) from seven wastewater treatment plants, all for the purpose of biogas production. The total investment for the project amounts to 240 million CNY (approximately equivalent to 240 million DKK).

The Danish knowledge centre SEGES has been engaged as the process designer for the project and has already completed the preliminary design. As part of this design phase, several Danish companies with expertise in biogas technology—including NISSEN energy a/s, Landia A/S, and Westcome Heat Exchanger A/S—have been recommended as equipment suppliers for the project.