Metering.com 20 JUNE 2016
In Asia, the Taiwan Water Corporation (TWC) partnered with Israeli integrated water solutions firm, TaKaDu, for the rollout of a network management pilot project.
The programme will allow the water utility to deploy TaKaDu’s IoT cloud-based data analytics solution to monitor and manage part of its distribution network. In total, the water company provides services to some 17,8 million consumers under its 59,972km network.
However, the pilot will only cover 3,000km of pipelines owned by the TWC.
The project falls under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Taiwan and Israel for the mutual improvement in water efficiency. According to the TWC, while rainfall remains high in Taiwan, TWC faces water scarcity challenges. Almost 80% of the water from rainfall is lost.
Commenting on the project, Tin-Lai Lee, director of the water loss management department at TWC said, “For the last few years, we’ve been committed to find the most innovative technology for efficient management of losses, energy and demand in water distribution systems.
“The management solution enables us to manage every type of event happening in our network so that we can respond quickly to problem areas and bring them under control efficiently and optimize our operational resources,” added Lee.
TaKaDu will be assisted by its subsidiary, eHow, in the deployment of the programme.
The state owned water utility said it will expand the rollout of the data analytics solution through out the country if the pilot yields positive results. [Global smart water metering market worth US$5.51bn by 2021].
Smart water projects
In other smart water news, the US city of Berea in Ohio partnered with metering solutions company Badger Meter and metering firm NECO for the rollout of a smart water meters project.
The city will install some 4,000 Badger water meters with assistance from NECO to reduce non-revenue water through accurate water billing and leak detections.
Cyril Kleem, mayor of Berea city, said: “Some meters in the city are 50 years old, they need to be replaced.”
The new system will allow the city water department to communicate with its consumers remotely on a daily basis unlike in the existing system whereby the city carried out meter reads on a quarterly basis.
“This will be more efficient for the Water Department,” added the mayor.
The programme comes into existence following the approval of a US$1.7m loan from the Ohio Water Development Authority for the city to upgrade its metering system.