Water Utility Provider Leverages Managed Services
to Combat Water Loss
A state-owned utility provider in the southeastern United States faced a significant challenge with water loss in its distribution system. The provider serves multiple communities. Over its 80 years of operation, the utility has developed a robust infrastructure to deliver potable water, reclaimed water, and wastewater services to its growing customer base.
Challenge
Over the years, inefficiencies in the utility provider's system became apparent. The utility was losing 25.6% of its total treated water each year. This represents 1.898 billion gallons out of the 7.72 billion gallons produced annually. Making matters worse, 76% of this loss could not be accounted. These losses reduced operational efficiency and posed challenges to the provider's sustainability and capital expenditure management.
Initial Situation
When Advizex was brought in to offer managed services, the utility had several monitoring measures for tracking water movement through the system. These included:
- Water input into the purification system
- Purified water output
- Distribution system input
- Internal flow meter measurements
- Regional distribution output
A key weakness in these systems was their reliance on aggregated or summarized data. This created significant gaps in understanding the root causes of water loss.
Solution
Advizex met with the client and took the time to understand how its systems worked and what problems it was facing in its operations. After thoroughly assessing the situation, the Advizex team proposed a comprehensive water loss management approach. The plan included shifting from static, aggregate data analysis to a dynamic, real-time monitoring system. Three key components made up the plan:
- Data integration: All data sources were combined into a unified platform for a more seamless data flow.
- Real-time analytics: Advanced analytical tools were put into place to enable continuous monitoring.
- Centralized architecture: A data lake was created to collect real-time information from all monitoring sources.
Advizex's relationship with OEM providers allowed the team to readily and affordably provide a deep integration of these technologies into the solution.
Expected Outcomes
The new system is significantly more accurate than the one it replaced. It’s expected to deliver several benefits to reduce water loss:
- Enhanced visibility: The utility will have a deeper insight into its water distribution system. It'll be able to identify previously elusive sources of water loss.
- Operational efficiency: Faster responses to issues and more efficient resource allocation will be possible, thanks to real-time monitoring and analytics.
- Sustainability improvement: The provider’s desire for better sustainability will be more easily realized through better tracking and managing of water resources.
- Cost reduction: The newer, more data-driven approach will increase efficiency and reduce water loss to help optimize operational costs.
Key Learnings
The work by Advizex on this issue demonstrates several insights that other utility providers can learn from:
- Traditional aggregate data analysis is unreliable for identifying specific sources of resource loss.
- Real-time monitoring and data integration brings great benefits to modern utility management.
- A robust and modern data infrastructure is required to support ongoing optimization efforts.
This modernization illustrates how modern technology and a good managed services provider can transform how utility providers address operational challenges. The move from static, aggregated data analysis to real-time, integrated monitoring systems offers utilities a deeper look into their resource management. The result is fewer losses and improved operational efficiency.