Successful trial multi-parameter sensors

Data-dri­ven insights can change the way the water sec­tor main­tains and man­ages sup­ply and even how util­i­ties, gov­ern­ments and cus­tomers think about water as a resource.
Util­i­ties across the world face sim­i­lar chal­lenges in main­tain­ing asset per­for­mance and resilience against increas­ing­ly com­plex and volatile cli­mat­ic con­di­tions. To make the best deci­sions, util­i­ties need access to accu­rate and time­ly information.
While util­i­ties are grad­u­al­ly deploy­ing more data-enabled com­po­nents and assert­ing greater con­trol over the net­work, per­ceived high costs and chal­leng­ing reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ments are often cit­ed as road­blocks to com­pa­nies invest­ing in these systems.
Over the last decade Intel­li­tect has worked in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al util­i­ties to cre­ate tech­nol­o­gy that can bet­ter mea­sure, col­lect and analyse a wide range of net­work events. This has led to the devel­op­ment of sev­er­al smart net­work solu­tions, includ­ing cost-effec­tive sen­sors and smart com­po­nents such as mobile acces­si­ble report­ing tools and ana­lyt­ics platforms.
As well increas­ing the effi­cien­cy, longevi­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty of the under­ly­ing phys­i­cal water net­work, these end-to-end solu­tions mean a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in util­i­ty expen­di­ture on project costs when try­ing to adopt smart net­work capa­bil­i­ties – help­ing to remove one of the finan­cial bar­ri­ers to adoption.
Tri­als of Intellitect’s inno­v­a­tive mul­ti-para­me­ter sen­sors have been suc­cess­ful­ly car­ried out in dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works across Europe, includ­ing South­ern Water in the UK, Berlin Water in Ger­many, Saur in France and Zurich Water (WVZ) in Switzerland.
The sen­sors, designed for con­tin­u­ous direct inser­tion into drink­ing water pipes, mea­sure water qual­i­ty and hydraulic para­me­ters in one device.
Each project pre­sent­ed spe­cif­ic chal­lenges. In Zurich, Switzerland’s largest city, the high qual­i­ty of the pipework means that insert­ing sen­sors into the net­work is always a cost bal­anc­ing issue, as they cost a frac­tion of the cost of the pipes.
The util­i­ty decid­ed to iden­ti­fy alter­na­tive points to access the net­work and focussed on the city’s 1,200 foun­tains, two-thirds of which are con­nect­ed to the drink­ing water network.
Zurich Water’s team decid­ed that the pipes feed­ing the foun­tains could be used as access points, but there was no suit­able exist­ing tech­nol­o­gy, so the util­i­ty worked with Intel­li­tect to devel­op bespoke sen­sors that would allow mon­i­tor­ing at these locations.
In a tri­al for Berlin Water, Intellitect’s sen­sors were placed along­side exist­ing sen­sors to mon­i­tor the reli­a­bil­i­ty of the data over sev­er­al months. The sen­sors pro­vid­ed accu­rate data with no cal­i­bra­tion or main­te­nance require­ment, unlike the exist­ing sensors.
In France, one of the chal­lenges for the part­ners was to devel­op a water mon­i­tor­ing device small enough to fit in any cham­ber and at a cost that made it high­ly repeat­able. Saur man­ages 180km of water net­works across France, so capac­i­ty to install at scale was a key consideration.
Through sev­er­al rounds of proof-test­ing and con­tin­u­ous improve­ments made by Intel­li­tect in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Saur, the orig­i­nal eight para­me­ter sen­sor was honed down to five key para­me­ters – pres­sure, chlo­rine, tur­bid­i­ty, flow and tem­per­a­ture. This meant that the size of the device could be reduced for instal­la­tion on the small­er pipes in the dis­tri­b­u­tion mains, sit­ed clos­er to end-users.
 

“Ulti­mate­ly, we aim to be in a posi­tion to inform end-users before they expe­ri­ence any impact. Intellitect’s ana­lyt­i­cal tools with­in their Insight plat­form is one solu­tion that will help us reach our target.”
— Saur’s inno­va­tion project man­ag­er, Brice Gatignol

 
Leg­isla­tive dri­vers emerg­ing across Europe require greater trans­paren­cy for the data col­lat­ed by util­i­ties, as well as encour­ag­ing them to take a more proac­tive and coop­er­a­tive approach to data-shar­ing. In Eng­land & Wales, the eco­nom­ic reg­u­la­tor Ofwat is active­ly encour­ag­ing water com­pa­nies to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly in the key areas of water qual­i­ty, leak­age, net­work man­age­ment, mains clean­ing, dis­coloura­tion and chlorine.
The tech­nol­o­gy already exists to sup­port this open­ness. Intellitect’s smart water net­work man­age­ment sys­tem offers a sin­gle cloud plat­form that can be imple­ment­ed quick­ly and effi­cient­ly, pro­vid­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty to all par­tic­i­pat­ing water companies.
As part of Intellitect’s long-term strat­e­gy, an end-to-end solu­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, ana­lyt­ics, and visu­al­i­sa­tion has been devel­oped. This allows sen­sors to send the rel­e­vant data to the appro­pri­ate oper­a­tional team in real-time, help­ing them to get ahead of inci­dents before they reach the consumer.
Our research and devel­op­ment team are now look­ing at fur­ther enhance­ments, includ­ing extend­ing mon­i­tor­ing across the full water­cy­cle, from source to dis­charge, for bet­ter trace­abil­i­ty and impact of incidents.
On the cus­tomer side we are col­lab­o­rat­ing with util­i­ties adopt­ing our tech­nol­o­gy and start­ing to explore options for increased cus­tomer engage­ment to reduce con­sump­tion, help­ing the envi­ron­ment and keep­ing bills down.
The water sec­tor is start­ing to embrace the val­ue of data-dri­ven insights in improv­ing the speed and qual­i­ty of deci­sion-mak­ing. With the nec­es­sary smart water net­work sys­tems in place, the poten­tial to rad­i­cal­ly trans­form the way water and water infra­struc­ture is used and man­aged is at our fingertips.