Meter Reading
Counters are the mechanisms that record water consumption at houses, and serves as the basis for the billing for the service. Maintenance and preservation is performed by the company and therefore the cost of repair and/or replacement thereof is included in the invoice of water in the event of a breakdown.
The reliability of the counter reading is essential to guarantee the log for supplied water consumed throughout. To maximize the register of water supplied and minimize the volume of unregistered water, three great premises are followed: no counter stopped or disabled; no counter with over 10 years of age through a renovation plan; and the fact that all installed counters are of high accuracy (volumetric with R> = 160)
Intelligent management of meters
Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia is the absolute leader in the national domestic market in the management of smart meters, with 650,000 units.
With remote reading, we changed the business model in the management of supply, and faced the challenge of adapting management to social, environmental and economic needs arising from reality. In this sense, the benefits inherent in this management of smart meters are:
- Avoid discomfort by not having to access homes except for specific inspections.
- Reduce to residual levels the estimated consumption billings.
- Alert of possible anomalies in patterns of consumption that may be due to leaks in the in-house installations.
- Provide information on detailed consumptions more regularly in the virtual office.
- Reduce the turnaround time for faulty counter replacement.
- Anticipate leak detection in the supply nerwork working with hydric balances and actual consumption.
Leading the implementation of Smart Metering on water supply networks
Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia has more than nine years of experience managing water supply services using Smart Metering. This fact positions the company as a world leader in the implementation and exploitation of this technology.
The Global omnium/Aguas de Valencia's Smart Metering strategy started in 2006, when the first drive/walk-by meters where installed, 25 small towns and some large towns, such as Gandia, Quart de Poblet, Tortosa and Sagunt will be completely equipped with smart meters. Moreover, València will be the first large city in Europe fully equipped with smart meters in fixed network in Europe (near 650.000 units).
Global Omnium/Aguas de Valencia was one of the first water utilities realising that this model could report other benefits apart from those directly related to billing. To do so, a set of state-of-the-art software tools have been developed so that Big Data from Smart Meters is processed and transformed into useful information which, in the end, brings significant improvements to the quality of the service and the operation of the Water Distribution Network (WDN).
From an operational point of view, the acquisition and further processing of near-real time data from smart meters, allows, among others:
- Adpating water production and to demand, thus reducing the pressure within the WDN and leaks associated;
- Carrying out hydraulic balances to opitmise lead detection and tampering/fraud.
The adoption of smart metering solutions and maintenance activities according to improved leak detection capabilities, has implied in some locations increases of hydraulic performance from figures around 70% to 86% in the period 2009-2013. As a consequence, it is estimated that more than 3.800.000 m3 of water leakages within the WDN have been avoided.
From the quality of the service point of view, this model has allowed:
- Eliminating the necessity of accessing houses for visual reading of meters;
- Eliminating estimated readings;
- Providing additional values.
This model also reported benefits for the customers. For AVSA, with the current roll out, an average of 50 internal leaks per month is being detected. This has avoided billing customers more than 22 000 m3 each month and it is estimated than 50 000 m3/month will be saved. Moreover, customer complaints have been reduced by 3%.