AVK Smart Water provides accessible and reliable data
A water utility’s foremost duty is to ensure a safe and reliable drinking water supply for its consumers. To do this, they must ensure reliable operations and functionality of the water distribution network and be able to react quickly when unwanted changes occur.
Nowadays, many utilities have installed meters that can measure water consumption, which is essential to ensure correct billing and to reduce the amount of Non-Revenue Water (NRW). However, there is potential to collect and utilise a larger amount of data from the utility network by installing sensors, such as those AVK has developed in our Smart Water solutions. By applying AVK Smart Water solutions to key network assets such as valves or fittings, data can be delivered directly to a dedicated software platform where it is transformed into valuable knowledge and insight, saving both time, water, energy, and labour resources.
Collecting valuable data
The AVK Smart Water solution is a combination of sensors and software. Our software allows easy integration with a preferred IT system as well as visualisation in AVK Smart Water’s own platform, VIDI Cloud.
The sensors are designed for our gate valves, fittings, and hydrants. Once installed, they can provide data about pressure, flow, temperature, or open/closed position directly from applications in the distribution network. This way of monitoring network activities makes it possible to save resources, minimise water loss as well as optimise operation and maintenance activities, for example by quickly informing about leaks.
The sensors use the wireless IoT technology NB-IoT (Narrowband Internet of Things) to ensure good coverage and long battery life. NB-IoT can penetrate closed structures such as wells, chambers, and other underground structures.
Dividing the water network into sections
Leaks in pipes and other equipment, caused by, for example, bursts or breaks, are some of the main causes of water loss. When a leak occurs, it can take days, weeks and even years before it is detected, and finding the exact area in a large, wide-reaching network is no easy task.
Therefore, dividing the supply network into separate sections, also referred to as District Metering Areas – DMA, is an effective technique that makes it possible to get an overview of what is going on underground. Water loss can be calculated in the sections individually, and operators can better plan and prioritise their efforts.
Coping with water loss in the entire distribution network, rather than in individual zones (DMA’s), means working in a reactive, passive manner, where activities are only initiated when a loss becomes visible or reported.
Improved NRW calculations and support for active leakage control with VIDI Positioner
As part of the LEAKman project, VIDI Positioners are installed on valves positioned at the boundaries between the DMAs. From these positions, they will provide reliable data for the water balance and NRW level calculations.
The LEAKman partners identified at an early stage the need for knowing if - and when - the DMA boundary valves are operated, as this affects NRW management and often leads to false results when conducting the water balance assessment and the minimum nighttime flow monitoring.
Water balance calculations are highly dependent on valid data. It is a well-known issue that if the boundary valves have been opened for maintenance, they are sometimes not brought back to the closed position afterwards. In other words, monitoring the open/closed position of boundary valves can help prevent unmeasured flow between DMAs, and thereby ensuring more reliable data and calculations.
Pressure adjustment techniques to minimise leaks and reduce energy consumption
Pressure adjustment is considered the single most important, and cost-effective leakage management activity. The higher the pressure, the more water is lost through bursts and leakages. Furthermore, most pipe bursts occur not only due to high pressure, but rather due to pressure fluctuations that cause pipes to constantly contract or expand, resulting in stress fractures.
Pressure adjustment is also an effective way to reduce unnecessary energy consumption. By allowing lower pressure in general, especially during off-peak hours, energy consumption for pumping can be reduced. The pressure can be adjusted to the critical point at a strategic consumer in the DMA, which means that no energy will be used to pump water to a higher level than necessary.
Today, many Pressure Relief Valves (PRVs) only have manual monitoring, meaning the utility must go to the valve location and manually check the pressure gauge.
This is time-consuming and, in principle, PRVs can fail within minutes of being manually inspected, meaning the pressure is not reduced correctly.
Using wireless battery-powered pressure sensors, PRVs can be monitored every minute or every five minutes. This way you achieve constant online monitoring of your PRV.
The LEAKman project
(LEAKage MANagement) intents to demonstrate Danish solutions to reduce the loss of clean drinking water and to pave the way for new Danish water technology.
Read more about the LEAKman partnership
