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Product(s): |
OpenFlowsTM WaterSightTM |
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Version(s): |
Various |
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Area: |
Help and Documentation |
Overview
WaterSight can integrate AMI/Smart meters from large and critical customers, up to a limit of 2 000. Due to the volume of data involved, Smart Meters are currently not intended to be used for all customers within a utility. With this integration it is possible to monitor large customers flow, generate alerts, understand the influence of large customers on zones flow (more effective leakage management). It is also possible to have the smart meters consumption automatically being adjusted into the real time hydraulic model – more information below.
Large Customer Monitoring
WaterSight can connect to AMI systems to bring Large Customer real time series data. This data is typically available at 15 minutes or hourly time steps (at least an hourly time step is required). For more information about data connection requirements, take a look at this article - Sensor Data Aquisition Requirements.
Once the connection is set up, it is possible to monitor large customers flow:
- either from the map,
- from Large Customer Overview page,
- or from the large customer detail graph.
The Large Customer detail graph will show detailed chart for a specific sensor. By default the a 3 month signal history will be read.
The chart displays initially a time-window that covers the current day plus some hours into future, with the range-slider below the main graph turned on. This view is particularly useful to monitor network parameters and to easily spot any anomalies (that can represent internal leaks, anomalous consumptions, etc) in real time. The pattern confidence bands are represented by a grey band, while real (re-sampled) values are represented as a black, red or orange circles. Whenever real data (re-sampled) goes outside the pattern confidence bands (above percentile 95 or below percentile 5 of the pattern), an outlier is identified and the real value is colour coded with a red circle. The user has also the option to navigate in the time history series to understand past behaviours or have access to future expected behaviour (short-term forecasts), by moving the range-slider below the main graph.
Figure 1 - Large Customer detail graph
Figure 2 - Large Customer Overview page
Figure 3 - Large Customer Map view
Influence of Large Customers on the Zone Flow
The total large customer flow can be obtained by summing each individual smart meter belonging to a specific zone and be displayed directly on the zone graph. By default the total large customer flow is disabled, but the user can enable it from the Zone overview page or zone detail graph page, by clicking on the visibility button and enabling large customer flow, which will be represented with a blue line (check figures below).
This is particularly useful to more efficiently analyse if zone flow events might represent real bursts or leaks or the zone flow increases are just due to large customer consumptions.
Figure 3 - Enabling large customer flow in the zone overview graph
Figure 4 - Enabling large customer flow in the zone detail graph
The Flow Remainder time series can also be enabled and represents the difference between the total zone flow and the total large customer flow series.
The Total Large Customer Flow and Flow Remainder time series is also available under the Graph Comparison:
Figure 5 - Enabling large customer flow in the zone detail graph.
When accessing the comparison page directly from the zone graph detail (by pressing the comparison shortcut above the zone graph ) , automatically the inflow and outflow sensors of the zone as well as the total large customer series will be displayed. To quickly access those time series in the right side panel, press the "show selected in series-tree" button, located on the bottom of the side panel.
From the comparison page the user can also easily disaggregate the Total Large Customer Flow series to analyse the contribution of each individual large customer belonging to the same zone. To do this, press the graph icon located on the right side of the total large customer series, as shown below:
After that the graph will automatically populate with each individual Large Customer series (for that specific zone), as shown below. This can be useful to understand if in case there is a big large customer flow increase, which is the main responsible customer.
Figure 6 - Displaying each individual Large Customer series belonging to the same zone.
Large Customer events
Events can be automatically generated by the software (based on some user defined alert triggers configured in the administration) or manually added by the user directly form the large customer graph. Events can represent for example internal leaks, anomalous decrease in consumptions or stopped meters, which should be analysed by the user.
By default the automatic generated events will have assigned the status "New" and the category "Unknown" and the option "Exclude from Patterns" set to No, and will be listed in the Active Event list page and Map page.
The generated alerts can be triggered using the large customer pattern as reference, can be based on absolute values defined by the user or can be generated for no data or flat reading periods. All trigger configurations are defined by the user at the alerts administration page.
Automatically updating Large Customer demands into the Hydraulic Modelling
Zones with very large industrial demands may be more accurately modelled in terms of temporal distribution of the demands in case AMI (smart meter) data is available . In case AMI data is available for the Large Customers, WaterSight can use that data to automatically update the patterns for those specific customer meters in the model and a remainder flow pattern - given by the difference of the total zone flow and the sum of all large customers flow - will be applied to the rest of all customers of the model that are within the zone.
More information can be found here - Smart Meter Adjustment.
Customer Analytics
In the Customer Analytics page the user can:
- Understand the importance of Large Customers in the total revenue of the utility along time
- Monitor the evolution of the monthly billing volume in the Large Customers and comparison with the same period of previous year
- Understand potential oversized or undersized meters affected to Large Customers (by comparing average consumption with Diameter size)
- Understand aged meters affected to Large Customers (which might be contributing to apparent losses level)
More information here - Customer Analytics.
Water Audit
Large Customers should be also considered for the monthly water balance calculations, for the revenues. For this make sure that the list of the customers and billings uploaded in Admin >> Customers also includes the Large Customers.
Configuring Large Customers (and Smart meters)
The Administration page is used to configure Large Customers and Smart meters. Note that WaterSight is intended to integrate with smart meters from large or critical customers, up to a limit of 2 000.
To have Large Customers being displayed in the Network Monitoring page and ready to be used for alerts/events:
- upload smart meter information under Admin >> Smart Meters. Make sure to fill required fields and mark those that are large customers (only those marked as large customers will be displayed).
- make sure that an automatic connection to the time series data source is configured and set up - more information here, Sensor Data Acquisition Requirements
To have the total Large Customers Flow being displayed automatically in the zone flow graphs, it is required:
- upload smart meter information under Admin >> Smart Meters. Make sure to fill required fields and mark those that are large customers (only those marked as large customers will be displayed).
- zone field or coordinates of each smart meter need to be defined. If Zone field is defined, WaterSight will use this field to map the large customer to the respective zone. In this case make sure that the name defined here for the zone matches the exact same name of the zone in WaterSight (uploaded under Admin >> GIS and displayed in Admin >> Zones). If zone field is not defined but only the coordinates, than WaterSight will automatically calculate the zone assigned to each large customer (by intersecting the zone polygon shapefile uploaded in Admin >> GIS with the coordinates). If both fields zone and coordinates are defined, WaterSight will use the zone field.
- make sure that an automatic connection to the time series data source is configured and set up - more information here, Sensor Data Acquisition Requirements
To have Large Customers demand automatically updating the real time hydraulic model:
- upload smart meter information under Admin >> Smart Meters. Make sure to fill required fields and mark those that are large customers (only those marked as large customers will be displayed).
- make sure that an automatic connection to the time series data source is configured and set up - more information here, Sensor Data Acquisition Requirements
- Smart meters ID, defined in the Admin >> Smart Meters page , need to match with the Label field in the Customer Meters elements in WaterGEMS uploaded model (just for those that the user wants to use in the model)
- WaterSight will only use (for adjusting model demands) the smart meters which are marked as YES for the field "Is Large Customer" , defined under Admin >> Smart meters page.
- In Admin >> Numerical Model, select Smart Meter Adjustment (after enabling zone demand adjustment).
Large customers that do not have enough data for the entire duration of the model simulation (and for which a pattern in WaterSight can not be calculated) will be ignored. When choosing the option demand adjustment zone by zone, if a specific zone is omitted/not selected by the user, all smart meters that exist in that area will also be ignored. More information here - Smart Meter Adjustment.
To have Large Customers being displayed in the Customer Analytics page:
- Upload all the customers (which includes also Large Customers) under Admin >> Customers >> Meters
- Make sure in the customer meter template to define which are Large
- Upload the monthly billings of all customers (which includes also Large Customers) under Admin >> Customers >> Billings.
To have Large Customers being considered for the monthly Water Balances:
- Upload all the customers (which includes also Large Customers) under Admin >> Customers >> Meters
- Make sure in the customer meter template to define which are Large
- Upload the monthly billings of all customers (which includes also Large Customers) under Admin >> Customers >> Billings.
Note that for both Customer Analytics page and Water Balance pages, as only monthly billing data is needed, it is not required to have smart meters configured (under Admin >> Smart meters) neither the real time connection with smart meters set up.
See Also
Sensor Data Aquisition Requirements