Article
Lower your pipe burst rate
Do you know the status of the pipes in your water or wastewater network right now?
For most water utilities, it is hard to stay in the know about the status of equipment that is hidden underground. But without the right insights about your system, you will inevitably experience pipe bursts that could have been prevented.
Some of the common reasons for pipe bursts include excessive pressure in the network and subsequently worn pipes. You want to deliver sufficient pressure to your customers but erring on the side of excess will also put excessive pressure on your pipes and cause unnecessary wear and tear. And without the ability to track the status of your equipment, this will ultimately lead to pipe bursts and negatively impact your business in several ways:
How much could you save?
As a rule of thumb, most water utilities expect about one pipe burst per kilometre of pipe every year. Imagine if you could prevent just 10% of the bursts bound to happen in your network in the coming year. How much time, money and hassle could that save you? What if you could prevent 20%?
Solution: Zoning and demand-driven distribution
We looked at anomaly detection during night flow and pressure monitoring and averaged the savings in 100 projects all over the world. The results were impressive: 15% leakage savings, 25% energy savings and a 35% reduction in pipe bursts.
This shows the importance of preventing excessive wear and tear, and why you want to make sure that the pressure in your network does not exceed what is necessary to fulfil your customers’ needs. However, of course you do not want it to be insufficient either. To find the right pressure, it is essential to monitor and analyze data about consumption and adjust network pressure accordingly.
Dividing your network into zones will allow you to deliver varying pressures in different parts of your network based on consumption data.
Successful regulation of pressure in your network can significantly prolong equipment lifetime. To prevent replacing functioning pipes, you will need to utilize historic and real-time data to determine which pipes in your network to replace for the best possible outcome. You can learn more about long-term asset management here.