Development of a commercial tool for efficient management of water distribution networks.

• Principal investigator
  • Daniel Rodríguez Ramírez
• Funded by
  • Junta de Andalucía, Ayudas de Transferencia 2017, PAIDI 2020, AT17_6024_US

Currently, there is great pressure to achieve more efficient use of natural resources, particularly water resources, especially in Andalusia where they have historically been scarce. Therefore, it is essential for a water management company to be able to estimate and detect losses early on. Early detection is crucial to prevent wastage of water resources and damage to facilities and equipment. Additionally, estimating abnormal consumption and changes in consumption patterns can help identify cases of fraudulent use. For medium and small water distribution companies, estimating losses can be a significant technical and economic challenge, often resulting in problems going undetected until they become apparent and the losses are irrecoverable. Hence, it would be highly beneficial to have a generic tool that can estimate losses and abnormal or fraudulent consumption without requiring significant integration effort with existing water management systems.

As part of a previous project, a prototype of the ECOWAMER tool was developed to address specific tasks related to water network management, including water balance, consumption profiling, and detection of potentially fraudulent consumption at the point of use. All these functions were developed in a realistic scenario with low temporal resolution of measurements, which adds complexity to the problem. The tool was developed by members of the Estimation, Prediction, Optimization, and Control (GEPOC) research group at the University of Seville under code PAI TEP 950, in collaboration with personnel from Optimal Performance SL, a technology-based company whose promoters are mostly members of the research team. The tool is currently at the prototype stage and not commercially functional, with its use restricted to a specific part of the water network of the municipal water company in Seville (EMASESA).

The main objective of this proposal is to refine and commercially develop the ECOWAMER tool, while also consolidating Optimal Performance SL as a technology-based company by providing a finished product ready for commercial exploitation in small and medium-sized urban water distribution companies. The aim is to transition from the prototype phase to a market-ready product, crossing the so-called “valley of death” from TRL6 level of the H2020 program (TRL6: Capability to produce a prototype system or subsystem in a production relevant environment) to TRL8 level (Pilot line capability demonstrated. Ready to begin low rate production). To achieve this, specific objectives need to be met to ensure the tool can be used in any water distribution network, regardless of its topology, dimensions, and existing operational platform. Leveraging the existing software, tasks such as programming interfaces with databases, client/server tools, optimized calculation modules that implement the already developed algorithms, along with possible improvements based on optimization and machine learning techniques, need to be performed using commonly used software technologies in interoperability environments based on Microsoft Windows. These objectives are detailed below.

1. The application should be made flexible and generic: The program needs to be flexible and general in the sense that it should be able to adapt to any water management network. It should be capable of easily accepting any network topology without the need to modify the application’s code. Currently, making such changes in the prototype requires significant adaptation efforts. Additionally, it should easily integrate with the most commonly used water management systems in the industry. Therefore, it should support common database types and technologies for information exchange, such as file-based, SQL queries, interprocess communication, etc. Currently, the prototype can only integrate with EMASESA’s water management system.
2. Transform the existing prototype into a marketable tool: The current prototype is not a polished tool designed according to professional standards.
3. Improvement of estimation and detection techniques: The algorithms implemented in the prototype can be enhanced both in terms of their implementation and the data they handle, which in the prototype are heavily influenced by the operating methods and measurements available in EMASESA’s network. In other networks, different information may be available or managed in a different way, so it is possible to consider improving the algorithms to enable them to use other types of data. It is anticipated that improvements derived from the application of optimization techniques and machine learning will be utilized.