The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to revolutionise the water industry, as more and more of its technology is connected to the web

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology has been associated specifically with smart homes, smart cities as well as traffic management systems. However, a lesser- known fact about the IIoT technology is that it is also applicable across many other fields associated with our day- to- day life. One such area which can get highly influenced by the IIoT technology is water management

Smart Water Network

Smart water network with integrated set of products, solutions and systems enable utilities to remotely and continuously monitor and diagnose problems, prioritize and manage maintenance issues and use data to optimize all aspects of the water distribution network.

Smart water networks offer all types of utilities a tremendous opportunity to improve productivity and efficiency while enhancing customer service. It has also incredible potential to help alleviate impending water scarcity.

Application of smart water infrastructure

A few examples of devices available today, and the rate of innovation will accelerate.

For example, a pump station controller will be equipped with diagnostics for monitoring the condition of the pumps, their hydraulic performance and energy efficiency, and will be able to call for a maintenance intervention when required.

A pressure sensor with embedded software which can detect and analyse transients and flow data; clever signal processing algorithms which extract the information value from the sensor and send critical events to a dynamic hydraulic model.

A wireless ultrasonic level transmitter with a ten-year battery can  transmit sludge tank levels when there is a significant change in contents and report solids inventory to a ‘travelling salesman’ optimal route planner.

Smart Irrigation

Agriculture accounts for around 70% of the world’s fresh water resources; there are already many smart systems in service for precision irrigation and crop yield management, which significantly reduce water demand.

With wireless technology and cloud-based analytics, smart irrigation replaces existing irrigation controllers. Could enabled smart irrigation controllers that apply water based on plant need and weather. Moreover, with flow sensors and real-time alerts, property managers and landscape contractors can be alerted the second something goes awry, which if your site has any significant landscape at all, you know this can happen quite frequently.

These cloud-based management systems include real-time weather and site-specific watering instructions. Over five years, water consumption has been proven to reduce by an average of nearly 33%.

The benefits of a smart water infrastructure:

• Efficiency increase: Water management companies and associations can use real-time operational control to make smarter business decisions and reduce operating costs.
• Cost savings: water management costs can be reduced through improved asset utilization, process efficiencies and productivity. Customers and organizations can benefit from improved asset utilization and service improvements.
• Asset utilization: with improved tracking of assets using sensors and connectivity, companies can benefit from transparency and visibility into their assets and supply chains. They can easily locate assets and run preventive maintenance on critical pieces of infrastructure and machinery.
• Productivity increase: IoT allows real-time control, new business models, process optimization, resource conservations, service time reduction, and the capability to do all of this globally, reducing the mismatch of required vs. available skills and improving labor efficiency.
• Includes the Intelligent Operations for Water component
• Provides an in depth view of water operations.
• Leverages operational data holistically to create insights and improve water management.
• Helps utilities coordinate their resources to protect water supply and enable conservation and sustainability.
• Helps mitigate non-revenue water through pressure optimization and pipe failure prediction.

• Reduces leaks and energy consumption by optimizing the pressure in water networks.
• Responds proactively to potential network disruptions through deeper linkages to asset management.
• Tracks and monitors water consumption levels by gathering consumption data from smart meters.
• Enables a significant increase in the rate of water leak detection.
• Real-time intelligent dashboards harness information so it can be immediately shared throughout organizations and agencies.

Smart Water  Meter Infrastructure Solution :

Smart water meters are a form of IoT, a network of technologies which can monitor the status of physical objects, capture meaningful data, and communicate that data over a wireless network to a software application for analysis on a computer in the cloud.

At Anglo African we have the latest technologies capable of monitoring objects such as smart water meters and other electronic devices. A smart device is associated with each object which provides the connectivity and a unique digital identity for identifying, tracking and communicating with the object. A sensor within or attached to the device is connected to the Internet by a local area connection and can also have wide area connectivity.

With the above setup , we are able to manage and monitor the water consumption as well as detection of any water leakage, remotely. Each sensor will monitor a specific condition or set of conditions such as vibration, motion, temperature, pressure, water quality and water consumption and send these data are collected for analysis and management of a more efficient water infrastructure.

The Anglo African team is fully committed to helping you in achieving your new water vision to drive operations to the fullest potential. For specific queries, get in touch with Navin by calling on: 2331636 or via e-mail at navin.mautbar@infosystems.mu .