Big Data is more than a marketing buzzword. It’s become an essential tool for helping utility operators prioritize capital investments, manage network assets, and provide a higher level of service to customers.
Q&A With Opworks™ User And Developers
When federal and state environmental agency mandates required the City of Havre, Montana to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility, utility leaders decided to implement a more efficient record keeping process at the same time. The newly upgraded wastewater treatment facility officially started up in September 2016 with the capacity to treat 1.8 million gallons of sewage per day.
Any water utility that has to impose restrictions due to water scarcity appreciates the value of conservation. On the other hand, there are utilities that — knowingly or unknowingly — permit as much as 20 to 40 percent of their treated water to trickle away without collecting a cent for it. If you have experienced either extreme, but are not already using advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), what’s holding you back? Before dismissing AMI as being too costly, too technical, or too difficult to implement, consider the following cost-benefit opportunities.
According to the EPA, the volume of treated water lost annually through distribution systems is 1.7 trillion gallons at a national cost of $2.6 billion. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is one way to uncover the “hidden” details behind that assault on water distribution efficiency. In addition, innovative use of AMI smart water solutions also creates cost-efficient ways to optimize performance beyond recouping losses due to leaks, theft, or incomplete billing.
Water conservation has long been a hot topic between water utilities and their end users for a variety of reasons — seasonal water scarcity, overextended treatment facilities, periodic maintenance disruptions, etc. But when it comes to managing data that can help control water losses and recover billings for non-revenue water (NRW), why is it so hard to practice what we preach? This article dispels some of the common myths related to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) technology that can help cut treated water losses and generate previously overlooked revenue.
Despite their best intentions, wastewater operations all over the country have suffered from accidently under- or over-administering treatment chemicals when trying to get effluent into shape. With the proper tools, however, these mistakes can become a thing of the past.
Wastewater treatment operators spend countless hours working diligently to ensure their effluent complies with state and federal regulations. But some common errors can get in the way of their best efforts.
Over the past 10 years, DC Water has become the harbinger of the modern water utility. It’s often unconventional approach to tackling age-old problems usually elicits one of two responses from other utility professionals. The first response is one of resignation — if only I had the budget that size permits, I’d be able to do similar things. And the second is one of awe — there’s no way I have the amount of gumption to convince regulators or customers that I have a better way.
One of the great turnaround stories in the history of our nation’s water bodies is that of the Chesapeake Bay. Since 1976 when the Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) first undertook a comprehensive study of the Bay, efforts to address excessive nitrogen and phosphorous degradation of water quality have steadily improved the Bay’s complex ecosystem.
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