Throughout the last few years, there have been great shifts in smart water technologies regarding our climate future. Smart water solutions (AMR and AMI) have continued to evolve and expand into the utility market, and this has brought another solution more firmly into the picture – that of monitoring and management of metering and asset data.
These solutions solve the developing issues of resource use efficiency, the shortage of experienced workers, and the need for improved operational intelligence.
The evolution of Water Management
Traditional water management systems often rely on manual meter reading and data collection methods, which are time-consuming, prone to errors, and lack real-time insights. So how can water utilities build smarter infrastructure to gain insights about their systems for more informed operational decision-making?
Leveraging a wider menu of advanced technologies, water utilities are embracing a digital transformation with even more intelligent devices that connect insights to action with real-time data.
Transforming into Smart Utility Network
Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) systems revolutionize meter reading by automating the collection of water consumption data from meters installed at customers’ properties. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) represents the next evolution in smart water solutions, consisting of smart meters equipped with communication modules that enable two-way communication between meters and utility networks.
These smart water solutions help utilities better identify when, where and why water is being used. The utility and the customer can use the improved information to monitor, analyze and ultimately conserve resources and money.
There is also a conversation to be had with respect to the asset data itself. Water utilities can stream these data from SCADA systems and their historians to actively monitor, dashboard and trend the information. However, not everything needs to be actively monitored, but parameters like flow volumes vibration, temperature and pressure are all valuable in the right hands.
The ongoing Water Resilience Journey
Active monitoring can be coupled with the analytics power of artificial intelligence, enabling water utilities around the world to troubleshoot issues in mere seconds rather than spending two days just to get to the site. Even if some utilities in rural areas want to keep their staff employed physically reading their meters, there is still potential to gain significant knowledge from partial deployments and for more detailed monitoring of selected assets.
In the near future, there continues to be a need for collaborative computer-human interaction with these datasets to filter through the information. Initially, AI-powered systems (such as GAIL) can provide the first alerts through pattern recognition. However, there could be up to 2-3 times more alerts reported than are actual in its early stages. So there is still a strong need for human experts to pare the alerts down and train the machine gradually.
Conclusion
Utilities can make their systems more efficient, sustainable and secure by integrating the right mix of smart water technologies and applications. As the adoption of smart water solutions continues to grow, it will pave the way for smarter, more efficient water management practices, ensuring the long-term viability of water resources for generations to come.