Tampering with water meters is outright theft that costs everyone who plays by the rules. It’s what happens when consumers — end users, landlords, businesses, and in some cases even municipal employees with specialized knowledge of a water system — alter a device to avoid paying the cost of their actual usage. Putting a dent in the problem requires a multifaceted strategy.
The Water Department in the City of Redmond, which serves approximately 28,000 residents, needed to streamline its process of collecting meter reads to save costs and improve data integrity.
Non-revenue water (NRW) and, in particular, water loss through leakage has become an increasing priority focus for water utilities around the world. With failure rates of aging infrastructure increasing and growing water stress due to population growth and climate change, reducing the loss of essential water resources is paramount. Leak monitoring and detection systems from Trimble Water help water utilities proactively identify and reduce NRW and water loss, prevent service outages, and prioritize infrastructure repairs. Easy-to-use wireless and mobile leak detection solutions provide clear, accurate, real-time insights into the condition of the water network beyond the treatment plant. Paired with Trimble’s intuitive cloud-based GIS software, Trimble’s solutions make it simple for water professionals to visualize, manage, and analyze data from the field and use that knowledge to improve productivity and network performance.
The Cape Breton Regional Municipal (CBRM) Water Utility in Nova Scotia supplies potable water to a population of 81,000, which is distributed over 478 miles (770 km) of pipeline. To do this, they operate, maintain and manage 5 water treatment plants, 6 pumping stations, 11 water storage tanks, 8 sources of supply, 2,900 fire hydrants, 28,700 water meters and thousands of valves.
Find and fix leaks fast with the Aclara ZoneScan II leak-detection system. The industry’s leading, remotely correlated acoustic leak detection system cost-effectively identities small leaks before they become major problems, and will give you immediate insight into non-revenue water losses in your water distribution network.
The Water Systems Division of Brockville, a city located in the Thousand Islands region of Eastern Ontario, serves more than 22,000 residents and businesses that call the city home, as well as a portion of the neighboring Township of Elizabethtown-Kitley.
When the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) implemented a STAR® network system to read meters for its nine million customers, it never expected that the benefits of the system would extend beyond simple meter reading.
The 2010 Water Stewardship Act enacted by the state of Georgia has accelerated several utilities’ water loss and control programs. Provoked by the Act and the Water Supply Efficient Improvement Plan mandating that “by July 1, 2016, Public water systems shall develop and conduct a water loss control program to investigate, assess, and implement efforts to improve water supply efficiency,” Columbus Water Works (CWW) set out to develop a comprehensive plan for not only meeting, but exceeding the required objectives.
Aclara’s water pressure monitoring solution leverages our industry leading Aclara RF network to provide near real-time monitoring of water pressure throughout your distribution network. Whether used for leak detection or managing system-wide pressure, Aclara’s pressure monitoring solution is easy to install, reliable, low maintenance and integrated into your advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) environment.
Find and fix leaks fast with the Aclara ZoneScan II leak-detection system. The industry’s leading, remotely correlated acoustic leak detection system cost-effectively identities small leaks before they become major problems, and will give you immediate insight into non-revenue water losses in your water distribution network.
The new 3400 On-Demand Meter Transmission Unit (MTU) for water uses the efficient, low-power, high performance two-way Aclara RF Network technology to transmit hourly, interval usage data to the utility. The MTU supports up to nine-digit registers and delivers time-stamped reads on a time-synchronized network, allowing for advanced water distribution management. Enhanced features such as on-demand reads, firmware over the air, on-board storage of readings, market leading security,meter-generated alarms and flags and remote shut-off valve control bring market-leading AMI capabilities to the Aclara RF Network.
Aclara’s through-the-lid antenna lets you install Aclara Meter Transmission Units (MTUs) while retaining metal pit lids. Our flexible install options mean our MTUs will work whether you reuse current metal lids or replace them with RF-permeable ones.
The Aclara RF Network Data Collector Unit II (DCU) for water and gas utilities enhances your AMI network by providing reliable and flexible, two-way communications for water and gas meters.
Thanks to the increased prevalence of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and other smart infrastructure solutions (SIS) as well as the evolving demands of the utility consumer, an effective consumer engagement (CE) strategy has become a critical component of a utility’s overall service offering for their customers. Without an effective CE strategy in place, utilities could fall short of their customers’ expectations, thus leading to consequences such as lower customer satisfaction, higher call center volumes, and a higher cost to serve. To respond, utilities require a reliable CE solution that can adapt to their objectives, enabling them to meet their customers’ expectations, and position the utility to better serve their customer base.
ProFieldENCORE’S modular design and open interface architecture means that you can license as many or as few of ProFieldENCORE’S modules as you need. Let our experts help you to design an implementation model that fits your specific needs and circumstances.
Mueller Water Products is daylighting a smarter hydrant which not only provides life-saving fire protection but detects leaks in the water distribution system and monitors pressure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Historically, most fire hydrants sit idle after they are installed. They were there for that one day that hopefully never shows up. But in today’s connected world, fire hydrants are becoming an important asset in understanding the water distribution system, allowing utilities to monitor their water system operation and predict leaks.
For those unable to attend, the Internet of Things (IoT) was firmly part of the conversation at this year’s American Water Works Association’s (AWWA) Annual Convention and Exposition (ACE) in Philadelphia. If you haven’t heard the term, you’re going to hear a lot more of it in the years ahead. None more so than in the world of water distribution systems where it can provide real-time reporting to utility managers charged with systems upkeep, maintenance and reliability.
Solving the problem of non-revenue water starts with leak detection. Many utilities live with leaks because of the time, labor, and expense involved in detecting, prioritizing and fixing them.
As water loss continues to concern many utilities, American Leak Detection’s franchise business model continues to “plug many a hole.” As Adam Gray, Director of Marketing for American Leak Detection, explains in this Water Online Radio interview, the franchise model is effective on numerous levels, whether it be providing the leak detection expertise that a utility doesn’t necessarily have on staff or allowing leak detection experts to share their insights and knowledge across the franchise network.
Eric Stacey, Product Manager with Echologics, recently sat down with Water Online Radio to discuss leak detection, pipeline condition assessment, and permanent monitoring. As more and more sensors are put into the water distribution system, utilities are monitoring the formation of leaks and becoming more informed about their water loss.
Advanced metering infrastructure — that includes smart meters to facilitate communication between a consumer and the utility — takes a major step toward water conservation by making it easier to establish district metered areas, or DMAs. Monitoring these DMAs for synchronized production and consumption data is one of the most cost-effective ways of spotting leaks, thereby reducing non-revenue water.
Not getting a handle on NRW guarantees it will continue to haunt your operation.
For all the talk about scarcity of source water, funding, and the next-generation labor pool in the water industry, there is one area that is not falling short — data collection. Here is how water and sewer districts inundated with data collected from a variety of central control systems, pressure loggers, and stand-alone sensors can streamline and manage that flood of data in ways that cut their major concerns down to size.
Utilities looking for greater billing efficiency and control over every drop of water consumed by their customers face a constant battle with non-revenue water loss, which can be compounded by different metering technologies and consumer behaviors. Using accurate, always-on, continuous-sampling meters to take full advantage of automated smart utility networks is a better way to improve decision-making and achieve accountability goals across any circumstances.
The City of Dallas captured an additional 600,000 gallons of billable water in four months.
This is the time of the year for ghouls, goblins, and things that go bump in the night. Of all the scary things that your water utility might confront on all hallows ‘eve, however, the most chilling might be unforeseen non-revenue water losses from leaks, theft or meter inaccuracies.
In 2017, Orlando residents saw firsthand the negative effects of what could happen when a construction crew caused a major water main break downtown. Not only did the leak become an inconvenience for the city, but it also was expensive to repair.
The water burbling down the hillside amid thick, green foliage, certainly looked like a stream.
This video explains how Aquis Leak Detection can reduce the amount of Non-revenue Water by reducing loss of water through existing leaks and reduce the risk of additional leaks. Furthermore energy consumption, emissions and use of chemicals are reduced and water quality is improved.
While it often starts with a leak, historically many utilities have waited until there is an evident problem or rupture to react. Today’s utilities have an option. Imagine being immediately notified about a problem in an main. The EchoShore-TX platform will call, text, or email you promptly after detecting a leak or other anomaly.
As a leading provider of acoustic-based technologies for water loss management, leak detection and pipe condition assessment, Echologics is dedicated to helping water utilities reduce water loss.
An interview with Mark Loveday, Manager, European Region and Mark Nicol, Business Development Manager - Asia Pacific.
For the Bethpage Water District on New York's Long Island, providing first class customer service is a top priority. But antiquated meters -- and the subsequent billing complaints and maintenance requirements -- had become a problem. The Badger Meter BEACON Meter Reading System became the solution.
See how Echologics acoustic leak detection and condition assessment solution helps utilities to reduce non-revenue water, improve conservation and prioritize capital spending—without breaking ground or disrupting service.
The most populous city in the southeastern United States, Jacksonville, consistently rates in the top 20 in Forbes’ annual ranking of the Best Places for Business and Careers.
TaKaDu today announced its first deployment of its integration with Esri ArcGIS at Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) in the US, the first since joining the Esri Partner Network.
Park City is one of the most popular tourist areas in the United States. Beyond being a popular ski destination, every January thousands of movie fans flock to the city to check out the best independent cinema has to offer at the Sundance Film Festival.
ABB is working closely with cities and utilities to obtain greater efficiencies from existing infrastructure and build unified, attractive City services as part of a move towards Smarter Cities.
Lila Thompson, chief executive, British Water, said, “British Water welcomes the speech from Environment Agency chief executive Sir James Bevan about the UK’s pending water crisis and the “mix of methods” needed to reduce demand and increase supply.
The City of San Diego recently contracted the San Diego based remote-sensing data company, Utilis, to conduct a pilot study survey of the city’s drinking water distribution system as part of their innovation exploration program.
