Smart Water Grids and Digital Twin for the Management of System Efficiency in Water Distribution Networks

Abstract

One of the main factors contributing to water scarcity is water loss in water distribution systems, which mainly arises from a lack of adequate knowledge in the design process, optimization of water availability, and poor maintenance/management of the system. Thus, from the perspective of sustainable and integrated management of water resources, it is essential to enhance system efficiency by monitoring existing system elements and enhancing network maintenance/management practices. The current study establishes a smart water grid (SWG) with a digital twin (DT) for a water infrastructure to improve monitoring, management, and system efficiency. Such a tool allows live monitoring of system components, which can analyze different scenarios and variables, such as pressures, operating devices, regulation of different valves, and head-loss factors. The current study explores a case study in which local constraints amplify significant water losses. It develops and examines the DT model’s application in the Gaula water distribution network (WDN) in Madeira Island, Portugal. The developed methodology resulted in a significant potential reduction in real water losses, which presented a huge value of 434,273 m3 (~80%) and significantly improved system efficiency. The result shows a meaningful economic benefit, with savings of about EUR 165k in water loss volume with limiting pressures above the regulatory maximum of 60 m w.c. after the district metered area (DMA) sectorization and the requalification of the network. Hence, only 40% of the total annual volume, concerning the status quo situation, is necessary to supply the demand. The infrastructure leakage index measures the existing real losses and the reduction potential, reaching a value of 21.15, much higher than the recommended value of 4, revealing the great potential for improving the system efficiency using the proposed methodology.

Global Events and Surge in Residential Water Demand: Exploring Possible Hydraulic Scenarios

“…In 2018, SAWS reported conserving 4.9 billion liters The projected increases in demand from the simulations, encompassing seven combinations and two scenarios in this study, underscore the imperative of injecting more caudal and energy into wastewater distribution networks to meet the imminent surge in global demand and consumption. This aligns with the perspective put forth by Ramos et al [52], affirming that global water demand is anticipated to persist in its upward trajectory until 2050, reaching 20 to 30% above current levels. This trajectory is chiefly attributed to escalating demands from both industrial and domestic sectors.…”

Digitalisation of the European Water Sector to Foster the Green and Digital Transitions

“…As more information is fed into the model, requiring Big Data management, more results, predictions and performance analyses can be implemented. Hence, digital twin (DT) solutions can help reduce water losses and energy consumption by supplying advanced water-energy management interaction as a problem-solving holistic approach to support a set of conditioning factors such as: (i) the flow management: reduction of water leakages through the detection and communication system that supervises sensors and actuators to regulate water pressure and flow to avoid critical situations; (ii) water and energy monitoring: the monitoring system transmits data to the data loggers, control devices and management decision support system; (iii) water grid control: a remote-control platform, using Big Data analytics, empowers the waterenergy network manager to make the system progressively more efficient with real-time control and data-driven decisions [16,17].…”

“…The percentage of potential reduction of leaks is very site-specific as it depends on several factors, such as the network configuration, number of pipe branches, type of joints/connections, type and state of reservoirs and tanks, water levels, pressure variation and head losses in the network, population density in the network, number of water entry points (which should be minimized whenever possible), pressure-reducing valves (PRVs), their location and type, inner diameters of the pipes, age of the system components and morphology and topography of the system [16]. Nevertheless, based on some key literature studies on the digitalization of WDNs to reduce leakages [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], an average percentage of reduction of 30% can be pointed out. However, it must be noted that, locally, the value can vary a lot: in some studies, it was possible to reduce 80% of leaks, while in others the reduction was only around 10%.…”

Digital Twin of a Water Supply System Using the Asset Administration Shell

“…In [ 31 ], the research presented defines a new methodology for an efficient application of DT expertise within water distribution networks. In [ 32 ], a smart water grid with a DT is proposed for a water infrastructure to improve monitoring, management, and system efficiency; such a tool allows live monitoring of system components, which can analyze different scenarios and variables, such as pressures, operating devices, regulation of different valves, and head-loss factors. In [ 33 ], a wide set of digital water services suited to support various tasks along with common workflows in the management of water distribution networks are presented; such services are implemented as plugins using the DT of the water distribution network.…”