Smart Water Networks Will Endure When IoT Bubble Bursts

By Joel Hagan, Chief Executive Officer at i2O Water

In its latest Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, leading analyst firm Gartner places the Internet of Things (IoT) at the top of the life cycle phase it calls the ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’. Beneath the hype of fanciful labor-saving applications such as fridges that reorder milk or robot mowers that activate when they sense the lawn needs cutting there lies a reality. The IoT is delivering value in practical and unsensational ways that will endure.

For instance, i2O Water has been taking advantage of low power electronics, ubiquitous communications, and cheaper computing power for over a decade, long before the term Internet of Things was even coined, to help water companies monitor and remotely control their distribution networks. By monitoring and optimizing network water pressure in real time, we help water utilities deliver better customer service and remove the excess strain that damages assets  and increases leakage and burst frequency.

In Malaysia, for example, the water utility Syabas has reduced water leakage by 90 million liters per day and halved its burst frequency by using our technologies to better match supply pressure to demand. Here in the UK, South East Water has reduced water loss by 4.9 million liters per day since installing i2O technology. Anglian Water has cut losses from burst pipes and leaks by 56 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

The approach we take is analogous to what Google is doing in traffic navigation to offer real-time control and optimization of a road network. Where data from your smartphone indicate that problems exist in the road network, Google is able to redirect drivers around snarl-ups using a variety of different routes. This helps it avoid clogging up the most obvious alternative and improves its understanding of the best routes to send other drivers down.

The same data on which our pressure control and optimization technology relies has the potential to fundamentally improve how networks are monitored and maintained. Engineers at i2O are working with customers to analyze data anomalies and patterns relating to specific network faults.

This insight will help water utilities save significantly more time and money by moving from time-based service scheduling to condition-based maintenance. Water utilities currently undertake regularly scheduled site visits to inspect their pressure reducing/regulating valves (PRVs), pumps, and other network assets. This often results in unnecessary journeys, road closures, and customer service interruptions. The very act of maintaining assets can also create new problems where none existed before.

Condition-based monitoring will allow water utilities to prioritize engineering resource where it is actually needed and minimize the time and effort wasted inspecting assets that are in good working order. Soon, the data may also allow the identification of symptoms or an evolving problem and enable it to be addressed proactively.

Controlling and optimizing pressure in water networks and analyzing data to improve network maintenance may not seem as fun and futuristic as automatically replenishing milk and smart lawnmowers. Dull but worthy as it may be, providing people with reliable, safe drinking water at lowest cost is fundamental to life on earth.  And we’ve been helping do that for a decade already.

Please contact us to talk more about how the IoT impacts the water industry and to discuss how we can help you to realize the benefits of IoT technologies in your network.