To maintain a balanced water consumption process that relies on the use of digital technologies to optimize operations, business and efficiency indicators are critical.

The digital renaissance opens up new potential for utility companies to improve resource efficiency and customer service.

They want to become more customer-focused.

Managers employ technology to accomplish a variety of objectives, ranging from evaluating consumption trends to regulating water distribution.

The most difficult problems and ambitions for the firm to accomplish continue to be environmental sustainability and infrastructure security.

What is the meaning of Asset Management?

Assets make up water and wastewater systems. Some of these assets are hidden while others are out in the open.

Wells, pipelines, valves, storage tanks, pumps, water treatment facilities and any other components required to run the water system are considered water system assets.

Ponds, mechanical plants, pumps, lift stations, valves, collecting lines, force mains, manholes and any other elements required to run the wastewater system are all considered assets.

Resources in water and/or wastewater system will lose value over time as they age and degrade.

As a result, the utility’s customers’ level of service may be jeopardized, operating and maintenance expenses may rise and the company may face extreme expenditures that it cannot afford.

Asset management refers to how the utility’s assets are managed.

Asset management will help the utility make informed decisions on how to care for its aged assets.

Resource management, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is “a planning process that ensures that you extract the most value from each of your assets and have the financial means to rehabilitate and replace them as needed.”

The purpose of asset management is to ensure the water and/or wastewater utility’s long-term viability.

The utility will be able to maintain the desired level of service by properly managing the assets.

Component of Asset Management

Assets

This includes generating a comprehensive list of all assets in the system.

Include as much information as possible about each asset in the document, such as the name brand, serial and model numbers, size of pumps, the horsepower of motors, any comments on replacement or maintenance on the asset and any other significant information about the asset.

Service Level

The level of service specifies what your utility expects from your assets.

Furthermore, it explains your objectives to supply your clients with what they desire from your business.

The objectives might range from water loss to water quality and should be “SMART.”

Criticality

The Criticality Analysis Rating describes how important an asset is to the water and wastewater systems.

When determining the criticality, evaluate the likelihood of failure and the consequences if the asset fails.

Life Cycle

The utility will need to take action on how they will run and manage their assets, including whether to repair and when to replace them.

Funding

The utility administrators must decide how much money is required for operations, routine maintenance, and asset replacement.

When addressing finances, communication is critical between decision-makers and operations employees.

Methods for managing water and wastewater

Therefore, water management is a crucial issue. It’s about water resource management for future generations.

It covers the action of maximizing the use of water resources through planning, development, distribution and management.

Water management preservation may be accomplished in a variety of ways.

The top ten water best management strategies used by the EPA to minimize water consumption at its many locations

Measure/Meter/Manage

Measuring and metering facility water usage aids in the analysis of cost-cutting options.

This also ensures that the equipment is properly run and maintained, reducing the amount of water wasted due to leaks or mechanical failure.

Improve Cooling Tower Performance

Cooling towers are significant water users and offer air conditioning for labs.

The ratio of water released (blowdown) to water evaporated may be carefully controlled to enhance cooling tower operations.

The concentration cycle is the ratio of evaporation to purge.

Cooling towers should be run at six or more concentration cycles for the best water efficiency.

Measuring the amount of water pumped into and evacuated from the cooling tower ensures that it is running correctly and can help detect leaks or other problems.

Repair or replace bathroom fixtures

In the 1990s, the US Department of Energy developed federal water-efficiency guidelines.

Most EPA buildings had ineffective sanitary fixtures before then.

Toilets, for example, utilized 3.5 gallons every flush (GPF).

Since then, nearly all EPA labs have installed water-saving fixtures, many of which have gained the EPA’s Water Sense badge for efficiency and performance. Among them are:

1-New toilets with 1.28 or 1.6 GPF flow rates.

2-Urinals with a flush rate of 0.5 GPF or less are Water Sense certified.

3-Shower heads with a flow rate of fewer than 2.0 gallons per minute (GPM) are Water Sense certified.

Do away with single-pass cooling

Single-pass cooling circulates a continuous flow of water through the system only once for cooling reasons before it drains.

In its laboratories, the EPA works to eliminate single-pass cooling.

Irrigation and landscaping that conserves water

Growing drought-tolerant and native plants reduces the requirement for extra irrigation.

An irrigation water audit can also help you save 10-20% on landscape water use.

Weather-based irrigation controllers or soil moisture sensors with the Water Sense certification are used to water only if the plants require it.

Steam Sterilizer Control Water

Cooling water is used in steam sterilizers to temper steam condensate discharge to the laboratory drain.

Especially when not in use, many older sterilizers send a steady stream of tempering water down the drain.

The Environmental Protection Agency has retrofitted sterilizers with a temperate water monitoring kit or replaced obsolete steam sterilizers with units that only use tempering water when necessary.

Reuse Culture Water from the Lab

Water is required for aquatic culture research at several EPA facilities.

Local bodies of water, such as lakes or bays, are sometimes used to pump culture water into laboratory sample tanks.

It is then disposed of in the sewer system or cleaned and returned to the water body.

Controlling the Reverse Osmosis System

The multi-step process of obtaining deionized (DI) filtered water using reverse osmosis can account for up to 10% of a laboratory’s water use (RO).

Purified Water generation rates may be precisely regulated to match laboratory demand, and systems can be scaled appropriately to save water.

Recover Rainwater

Harvesting Rainwater systems collect rainwater from the roof and channel it into a storage tank.

This water is utilized for flushing toilets, cooling towers, and landscape irrigation.

Recover condensate from the air handler

The cooling coils of air conditioners create condensate water.

This water is being captured by several EPA laboratories for use as cooling tower makeup.

Innovative assist management

AI for water infrastructure

Weak funding and municipal investment create a significant obstacle to the long-term management of urban water infrastructure.

Utilities throughout the world are being challenged to establish effective rehabilitation methods to avoid continued infrastructure deterioration, maintain adequate levels of service and optimize the value of their assets in the medium and long term.

AI and modeling are promising alternatives for utilities to improve asset management procedures and the effectiveness of inspection and restoration techniques.

AI approaches were also used to fill gaps in sewer asset data, which is critical for ensuring city-wide projections and reducing model uncertainty.

Water management solutions powered by IoT

The Internet of Things provides new technologies for better water management and efficient water consumption.

Water projects can be particularly challenging because many cities rely on outdated infrastructure and the Internet of Things provides an opportunity for municipalities to minimize operational costs associated with construction, maintenance and other activities.

The Internet of Things sensors enables the program to receive and provide more information from the entire network, increasing the client experience while lowering operating and maintenance expenses.

IoT can help with water management by Detection of water leaks, improving system water management, Monitoring water quality and safety, controlling Water reserve quality, Consumption transparency and Prescription for infrastructure upkeep.

Digital Twins for water Managing

Digital twins produce information that assists utilities to predict and optimize the current and future performance of their assets and water systems by utilizing data more effectively and making better use of the massive volumes of data they already collect.

Water system digital twins provide accurate and trustworthy data that utilities may use to do what-if studies and make informed decisions throughout the water system’s lifecycle, from long-term system vulnerability and capacity planning to immediate performance monitoring and emergency response.

Digital twins enable utilities to imitate disasters such as pipe failure, power outages, fires, and contamination by including a hydraulic/water quality model of the system that represents actual conditions.

Digital twins enable utilities to determine properties of their water systems that cannot be directly measured, such as water age or velocity, by incorporating those hydraulic models with data from SCADA systems, giving them a more detailed picture of the system to increase physical safety and reduce pipeline breakages.

Furthermore, because combining SCADA data and hydraulic models can provide an accurate assessment of how the actual water system behaves, utilities are using digital twins to imitate and test various ways that their water system could be operated to enhance emergency response, increase efficiency, or save energy.

References

[1] Asset Management Guidance for Water and Wastewater Systems [online] Available at: https://www.mrwa.com/PDF/AssetMgmtIntro.pdf

[2] Is AI the future of asset management for water infrastructure? [online] Available at: https://iwa-network.org/is-ai-the-future-of-asset-management-for-water-infrastructure/

[3] Digital Twins for Managing Water Infrastructure, [online] Available at: https://www.waterworld.com/water-utility-management/smart-water-utility/article/14173219/digital-twins-for-managing-water-infrastructure

[4] Water Management Plans and Best Practices at EPA [online] Available at: https://www.epa.gov/greeningepa/water-management-plans-and-best-practices-epa