Demand Management series by Dr Ronnie McKenzie – Part 3 of 4: State of the Art Technology

Can you discuss any new state of the art technology (hardware and software) that a medium to large utility or municipality should consider for monitoring flows, pressure leaks and its reticulation system?

The cost of data transmission is coming down as is the cost of logging and monitoring equipment which makes continuous monitoring an attractive option for managing water use and reducing water losses. Many new developments in the area of water monitoring have been introduced in recent years to the extent that there are now many different options available to a water utility wishing to implement some form of water monitoring platform at both an operational level as well as at the consumer level.  There are many systems available such as GSM/GPRS, radio frequency, SigFox, LoRa, etc. – all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. Each water supply system has its own characteristics and issues with the result that no single system can address every problem and the water utility should select a system that meets its own unique requirements.

It is sensible to start with a system of continuous logging at the bulk reticulation level and gradually work down to a more detailed and complex system if required, as budget becomes available.  I don’t necessarily think you should go overboard, but I do believe that if you can establish monitoring zones of, say, 10,000 connections or more on a continuous basis, that is a good start for any utility. This helps to see if they find a major problem in a specific region.   If a region has a problem, then the water utility can start cutting down to smaller zones to identify where the specific problems are. Normally, if you discover a high night flow in a large zone, then normally by just driving around or walking round, you can often identify where the problems are. It’s not too complicated – just basic detective work.

You mentioned LoRA. Can you speak more about that?

LoRa is just one of half a dozen new systems available using a radio frequency (RF) to transmit information cost effectively. It’s cheap and it’s ideal for areas where you’ve got maybe 10 to a thousand meters that you want to monitor from one area.

The software platform that we developed and use is compatible with all main systems available on the market. We have developed our own equipment and (agnostic) cloud-based system using GPRS/GSM networks. We’re also using LoRa systems, RF systems and SigFox, etc. which all tie into the same data-base platform that captures and displays the data in a very user friendly environment.   Our system is also one of many such systems and new platforms and data capture equipment are being developed and introduced to the market every month.  With so many new systems coming on the market at the moment, we can’t keep track of all of them.  In our experience, we find that the GPRS/GSM loggers work well in cases where the customers are not confined to a small area and individual meters may be kilometres apart.  In other cases, such as a townhouse complex, there may be 100’s or 1,000’s of individual customer meters within a small area in which case a GPRS system may not be the best solution.  In such cases a SigFox or a LoRa system would most likely offer the most cost effective solution.   No matter which system a water utility decides to use, the equipment selected should be reliable and not always the cheapest on the market.  We always recommend that a water utility test any equipment that it is considering using on a small scale pilot project to see how well it performs and how much maintenance is required to keep the system up and running.

It is important to establish, how often the batteries must be changed; how long will the system work; are the loggers waterproof; are the loggers to be used indoors or outdoors; can the loggers survive the African sun; are the devices battery powered or do they require on grid supply or solar panels.    All these issues will help to dictate which system you go for.

What is the name of your software?

Our Software is called ZEDNET. It is very user friendly; a cloud-based system and we currently have got about 10,000 units live on the Internet.

You can have a look at it on http://www.zednet.co.za/.

You can log in as a visitor typing VISITOR123. And the password is VISITOR123. It will show you what it can do, and you can play around with it.