IoT 3 mins read

Digital Water Management – Helping to Save the Planet

Water conservation and management is a top priority for many countries and cities – and even remote areas. The World Bank estimates that, globally, water leaks cost nearly $40 billion per year in waste and foregone revenues.

Tony Drewitt Tony Drewitt

Water conservation and management is a top priority for many countries and cities – and even remote areas. Stopping leaks takes precedence; not only do leaks waste a valuable resource they are also costly. The World Bank estimates that, globally, leaks cost nearly $40 billion per year in waste and foregone revenues.

There is a solution: Digital automated water management. We are excited to be helping create a solution that will address this. In partnership with telecommunications and technology company Telstra, we are trialing a Cumulocity IoT-based solution at Western Australia’s Busselton Water.

Based on Telstra’s IoT platform and the Cumulocity IoT Solution Accelerator for Water Management, the solution allows utilities to manage and optimize their water distribution systems end-to-end. By combining digital meters, dedicated pressure sensors and Telstra’s NB-IoT network with our IoT analytics solution, we are able to deliver true water management-as-a-service.

By helping to detect leaks, both at customer premises and at non-revenue water points such as pipes and tanks, we can help utilities to benefit from lower operating costs, a reduction of non-revenue water (leaks) and increased customer satisfaction.

Cumulocity IoT Solution Accelerator for Water Management includes many generic water management capabilities. The solution collects available sensor data such as pressure, consumption, and alerts things like pressure drops from a new generation of digital water meters. The solution also offers off-the-shelf tools for monitoring and managing all this data – along with business rules. It allows user customizable add-ons for greater granulation, individual optimization and fine-tuning.

Dashboards provide users with near real-time, full state-of-play at any given time. Utilities can add customizable tools and water utility specific dashboards to monitor other data metrics such as aggregated consumption over time, min/max/average flow and trend analysis, as well as peak and non-peak consumption.

Telstra will offer the solution to water utilities around Australia either on a stand-alone basis or as part of their end-to-end “IoT for Intelligent Utilities” package for water utilities.

At Busselton Water, where a proof of concept is underway, the solution will not only help to manage its water system, but will also allow the optimization of the power consumption associated with the utility’s water distribution system.

Chris Elliott, Chief Executive Officer of Busselton Water, said: “With water being such a scarce resource, the use of digital technology to help us better monitor and manage our system will be a huge benefit to our business. This is not just in the conservation of water, but in the provision of more reliable, cost effective water services to our consumer and business customers.”

In Australia, the Cumulocity IoT Solution Accelerator for Water Management will be available as a native Cumulocity IoT web application to all customers of Telstra who subscribe to this particular service.

The Cumulocity IoT Solution Accelerator for Water Management will also be available to the rest of the world, depending upon clients’ needs. Please speak to your local Software AG representative for more information.