Thursday 10 March 2016

Well known smart water solutions



Smart water is akin to smart city enablement which is happening in numerous cities of world. Across the globe smart water solutions provide access to clean water, proper drainage, water supply and utility of water. There are many smart water solutions which can be made better use of from existing resources for a city at disposal such that it can maximize to reach the citizens of a city. One of these concepts is the 'visibility of water flow’ through the water pipeline network.

This solution provides the city, the exact amount of water flowing in water pipelines in a city, at a given point of time. This is included in smart water by fixing the flow meters along the pipeline. Flow meters are bonafide sensors that measure the flow of water in a pipeline. They would easily transmit readings to a central server using various communication modes, which could be any one or a combination of radio and wireless protocols. When the attached flow meters are overlaid then the network shows actual number of flow meters varying as per city requirements. Later when the flow meters send back this data, this provides authorities to visualize water from pipeline networks. This is saved in a data repository. It is possible for city authorities to gather history of water flow in a specific pipeline. The above mechanism for water flow measurement is just one of the many solutions applied to smart water technology, although there could be many others. Some of the examples of smart water solutions are rainwater harvesting, a monitoring system , an integrated management etc. Usually the water consumption is collected to be transformed it into valuable and actionable intelligence across the utility.

In the example of sensors the stage of sensor deployment is followed by KPI for problem identification and mediation. The visual map of these readings is superimposed on the given city map. These are readings for individual flow meter or a group. A set of KPIs usually turns into a what is, a ‘Standard Operation procedure.’ Again the water that is pumped into the Water Distribution network but not reaching the customer is called ‘non-revenue water.’ In this we can observe equation for water flow from A through B and C.
Water flowing through A = Water Flowing through B + Water Flowing through C.

If the right side of the equation is less than the left side, it would indicate leakage or pilferage of water and would throw an alert causing a standard operation procedure. This comparison is called “Balance of Water”. Better accuracy of smart water solution can be obtained from smart water meters installed at every customer.





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