Northwest Water Commission Partners With Aquify For Transmission Line Monitoring & Analysis

Implementation of smart sensors, remote monitoring and real-time analytics set to enhance visibility of key water transmission asset serving 110,000 customers

Aquify, an Exelon company and the Northwest Water Commission (NWC) in Des Plaines, Illinois announced a strategic partnership to implement continuous pressure monitoring of the nearly 15-mile water transmission line that transports drinking water from Lake Michigan to the NWC facility in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Formed in 1957, the NWC provides its member municipalities of Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Palatine, and Wheeling, along with Des Plaines, with potable water. The transmission line moves about 25 million gallons of water per day from Evanston supplying water to 110,000 homes and businesses and more than 283,000 residents.

“Our transmission line is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure serving the quality of life of residents and businesses in Chicago’s northwest suburbs,” said Kevin Lookis, Executive Director, NWC. “Visibility into underground pressure anomalies and other operational variables is essential to reducing risk on the system and ensuring 24/7/365 reliability of clean drinking water. We are very excited about this new level of insight that Aquify will bring to the Commission as it will help us optimize this vital system for the communities we serve.”

Aquify and NWC identified critical sections of the transmission system and designed an approach to deploy 10 pressure sensors with transient monitoring capabilities. The pressure logging sensors will be co-located in existing access points, making installation easier while ensuring the structural integrity of the pipeline.

“We are pleased to be partnering with the NWC to deploy our technology and analytics expertise to help optimize performance of this vital transmission line,” said Lev Goldberg, CEO of Aquify. “The objective here is to provide actionable intelligence about pressure and system performance, which will ultimately lead to a more economically and physically resilient system.”

Aquify will supply and maintain the sensors, communications equipment, and secure cellular network to feed the data to its secure data server and analytics software. The system will be monitored and analyzed by Aquify’s 24/7 control room and engineering staff.

About Aquify
Aquify is a wholly owned subsidiary of Exelon Corporation one of the leading electric and gas utility companies in the US, serving more than 10 million utility customers. Aquify’s mission is to provide cities and municipalities across the U.S. with a new way to manage their aging water infrastructure while also achieving new levels of reliability, resilience, and responsiveness. It does this through 24/7 system monitoring and advanced analytics without the need for additional staff or capital investment.