Alternative approach to intelligent water network

An alternative approach to establish an advanced intelligent water network comprises a suite of tools deployed to maximise the overall benefit while minimising cost. It is hierarchically structured with a top-down approach to achieve early, real and sustainable water savings. It is extremely flexible and can readily be expanded as far and as deep as the organisation wants and the particular circumstances merit.

The system comprises the four core parts:

1. The establishment of district metered areas (DMAs). Through the sectorisation of a network, the challenge of understanding where and how much water is lost can be narrowed down. Using an innovative approach of employing virtual DMAs can allow users to do this easier and cheaper than previously possible.
2. An active leak detection program on identified ‘wet spots’ can create early wins by identifying leakage that can be stopped.
3. Problem or critical areas can now be put onto a modern permanent leak detection system, which will alert the operator online as soon as a leak occurs.
4. Finally, a smart metering system whereby critical users and a statistically relevant number of selected customers are logged. This allows a reliable extrapolation of this data for the entire network providing the benefits of a full advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) system at a fraction of the cost.

 All of this is held together by a central software system, which permits a full analysis turning all the data collected into actionable information for an advanced digital water utility network.