WaterSight - Supporting Water Losses Reduction Programs


Product(s): WaterSight
Version(s): 10.00.
Area: Documentation

Overview

Reducing Water Losses is amongst one of the main challenges water utilities around the world are facing, being more and more under pressure by municipal authorities, national regulators, private shareholders or public society due to the high impact on operational costs and due to the impacts on water resources management and energy inefficiency.

WaterSight can help utilities around the world reducing water losses, acting in both components of the real (or physical) losses and apparent (or commercial) losses. Figure below highlights the main areas of intervention for real losses and apparent losses reduction (as referenced by IWA Water Loss task force group and AWWA):

Figure 1 - Main areas of intervention of real losses and apparent losses reduction (source: AWWA)

Pressure Management

Reducing pressure is one of the intervention areas to reduce real losses volumes, as leakage flow is directly related with pressure in the system. Besides this, assuring stabilized pressures and avoiding big pressure changes can also contribute to lower number of new breaks. However it is important to simultaneously conciliate all this with the required service levels provided to customers.

With WaterSight your entire utility (modelers and non-modeler experts) can have access to a real time hydraulic model of the system. This hydraulic model is continually being fed by real time measurements coming from sensors (real PRV settings measurements, real tank levels, real pump status, real zone flows), which are imputed as boundary conditions for the model runs, turning the hydraulic model a more accurate representation of the real asset conditions. Any measurement for any asset can be modelled and forecasted, including real time pressures and forecasts. More information here.

Figure 1 - Integrate sensor measurements as boundary conditions for model runs and directly compare measured data (at black in the graph) with modelled data (at blue in the graph)

 

The utility can easily understand and share the network pressure map, including the location of the low and high pressures in the network. 

Figure 2 - Network pressure map

Through the network monitoring module the user can easily monitor in real time pressure measurements from SCADA or other telemetry systems and be immediately alerted for any anomalous event such as a PRV malfunction, or high or low pressures in the system. In addition to this, easily understand the impact in the minimum flows due to adjustment of VRP set point for example.

Figure 4 - Minimum night flow evolution for three different zones, from September to December. 

 

Regarding some possible pressure management solutions, some simple operation actions can be simulated directly in WaterSight such as opening and closing valves and easily identify the impact on the pressure through the system. More information here - valve operations.

The real time hydraulic model can also quickly and easily be exported and opened in the WaterGEMS desktop solution for further engineering analysis. For example the engineer might want to simulate the impact of changing the PRV setting point, or even installing a PRV, changing the pressure zones or DMA boundaries, understand the impact of installing new pumps, etc. After the engineer analysis is done and once the system starts to operate with the new conditions, this modified model can then easily be imported again into WaterSight. 

 

Active Leakage Detection

WaterSight can help in the active leakage control through the following: 

  1. Effective Sensor and DMA monitoring
  2. Real time anomaly detection
  3. Prioritizing zones for active leakage detection, through the calculation of the following variables:

 

Effective Sensor and DMA monitoring

An important dashboard in WaterSight is the Sensor and Zone overview dashboards where side by side graphs with real time measurements are compared with expected values. Whenever expected values go outside the expected ones (patterns) they get colour coded red and this can call immediately the attention of operators for potential issues that might be occurring, including leaks and bursts. More information here - Sensor Overview/ Zone Overview. These dashboards are usually played in the big screens inside a water utility control room. 

Figure 6 - Sensor overview dashboard with side-by-side graphs for each sensor, showing and comparing real time values (black line with the red dots) from expected patterns (grey bands)

Figure 7 - Zone overview dashboard with side-by-side graphs for each sensor, showing and comparing real time values (black line with the red dots) from expected patterns (grey bands).

 

Real time anomaly detection

WaterSight will also automatically generate smart alerts for potential leaks and bursts that might exist in the system, with the indication of the volume being lost. With those smarter alerts, utilities can know time in advance for potential leaks or bursts that might be occurring in the system. And with the reduction of awareness times they can find and repair those much faster, saving significant amounts of water. For more information, read the article - Near real time anomaly detection and Alert Management Workflow.

 

Prioritizing zones for active leakage detection

Both real losses volume and percentage should be always analysed together. Bigger zones tend to have higher volumes associated, which is an important variable, however active leakage detection efforts should also be done in areas where there is higher potential for reduction, and this usually happens in zones with higher percentages.

Another indicator is the minimum flow per service connection for each zone. By dividing the minimum flow by the number of connections, it is possible to directly compare leakage levels between zones with very different sizes. The ratio between minimum flow and average flow (or minimum flow based on percentage of average) is another indicator used to indirectly assess real losses.  High value means that the minimum flow is closer to the average flow, and therefore there is a higher probability of the zone having high levels of real losses. Both minimum flow indicators (minimum flow per service connection or ratio between minimum and average flow) become even more relevant whenever water balance data is not reliable.

WaterSight also allows to efficiently track active leakage detection activities and results through:

Figure 5 - Real losses volume evolution along the year for a specific zone

 

Asset Management

Articulate water losses reduction programs with the rehabilitation programs. Maximize real losses volumes reduction by identifying the right pipes that should be rehabilitated, while also considering other variables such as risk. This analysis is available inside the Capital Planning module. In case you don't have access to this module, please reach to your Bentley contact.

 

Speed and Quality of Repairs

WaterSight can help reducing repair times by increasing awareness of new breaks occurring in the system. In fact, automatic alarms are triggered whenever anomalies are detected in the system and those become available in the Active Event list for users to manage.

Figure 7 - Example of a medium burst event detected by the software - real time data represented with the line with the black/yellow/red dots starts to deviate from the expected trend/patterns represented with grey colour. 

 

Apparent Losses

WaterSight automatically computes water losses and can also quantify the relation between real and apparent losses. To know more on how apparent losses are calculated please see this article.

By calculating apparent losses volume and percentage, the software can help in the identification of priority areas for apparent losses activities (that can include illegal consumptions detection and customer meters replacement). Please note that both apparent losses volume and percentage should be always analyzed together: bigger zones tend to have higher volumes associated, which is an important variable, however apparent losses activities should also be done in areas where there is higher potential for reduction, and this usually happens in zones with higher percentages.

Figure 8 - Apparent losses volume  (above) and apparent losses percentage (below) for each zone

Another variable that is calculated is the apparent losses cost. While when reducing real losses there is a direct decrease in the production and transportation costs, apparent losses decrease have a direct impact on revenue. For example, when replacing customers meters that are stopped or under-measuring, there is a direct increase in the revenue by installing new meters; also when illegal connections are detected and the situation is regularized there is a direct increase in the revenues.

The most important message here is that although real losses volumes may be the biggest component on the total water losses volume, sometimes the apparent losses costs are higher than the real losses costs, because water tariff is higher than the water production cost.

Figure 9 - Apparent losses cost (above) and cost in terms of percentage (below) for each zone

One of the most important sources of apparent losses are the losses due to customer meter inaccuracies, oversized or undersized meters, stopped meters or illegal consumptions (through illegal connections for example). 

Through the customer analytics dashboard the user can easily understand meters that are potentially oversized or undersized, and evaluate also the sub-measurement (or inaccuracies) potential. More information here - Customer Analytics. 

 

See Also

OpenFlows WaterSight TechNotes and FAQ's

WaterSight Learning Resources Guide 

Near Real time anomaly detection
Water Balance diagram
Alert Management Workflow
Network monitoring

Customer Analytics