How Brønderslev Water Company has halved its water losses
By leveraging Diehl Metering’s water loss management software as part of its data-driven strategy, Brønderslev Water Company in Denmark has reduced non-revenue water from 10% to less than 5%.
When Thorkil Neergarrd became CEO and managing director of Denmark’s Brønderslev Forsyning A/S – the holding company of Brønderslev Water Company (BWC) – back in 2013, he had an ambitious plan: to establish Brønderslev as a Danish standard for digital innovation, promoting sustainable development and the conservation of water and energy resources.
To achieve this vision, Neergarrd recognised it was necessary to tackle BWC’s growing problem of non-revenue water (NRW) – the water that is lost in the network as a result of leaks, meter inaccuracies and other unanticipated events.
This was no easy feat, particularly because of the sheer amount of water that BWC is responsible for. Every year, it supplies around 980,000 cubic metres of water to 16,000 consumers in Brønderslev – all from its 365 km long water network.
While a typical amount of NRW in Denmark is around 8%, if a water company’s annual NRW exceeds 10% then it receives fines from the national authorities. With BWC’s NRW regularly exceeding the 10% rate, Neergarrd knew he needed to act fast. That’s why he took the strategic decision to implement a new digital strategy for water loss management (WLM) so that he could gain full control over the city’s water losses.
A data-driven strategy, enabled by smart meters
As part of his data-driven approach, Neergarrd rolled out smart meters, including Diehl Metering’s HYDRUS 2.0 Domestic ultrasonic water meters, to 6,500 households in Brønderslev. These are supported by a fixed network infrastructure, which includes fixed antennas and extenders that collect meter readings every hour from at least 98% of installations.
The entire water distribution network was then carefully subdivided into 22 unique district meter areas (DMAs), each of which were equipped with a HYDRUS 2.0 Bulk meter to determine the quantity of water distributed so that the NRW per zone could be established. The pipe recording database and the DMAs were digitized.
Very few water companies in Denmark are leveraging the data that comes from smart meters, and even less are applying intelligence to this data
This provided a good grounding for the next – and crucial – part of Neergarrd’s strategy: the intelligent use of data. While over three-quarters of all meters in Denmark are smart meters, most water companies use these purely to automate the meter reading process. Very few are leveraging the data that comes from these meters, and even fewer are applying intelligence to this data. Neergarrd believes that water companies should be far more ambitious. He argues that smart metering and the strategic use of meter data may be considered as the most important link in the new digital value chain in the water industry. Furthermore, future government mandates and standards for the adoption of intelligent water meters will boost the outlook.
By infusing artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, the location of a leak can be estimated without manual effort or hardware use
To this end, in 2023, Neergarrd implemented an advanced data analytics solution for water loss management. This geographic information system (GIS) is an online application that combines household meter data with DMA inlet-data from BWC’s supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Comprehensive analysis is then carried out on this mix of data, which can be supplemented with data from pressure sensors or noise detectors.
Valuable insights
Combining smart meter data with municipal utility internal data, for example, allows the continuous measurement of the difference between network input and withdrawal. This facilitates the early identification of leaks so that water companies like BWC can react as quickly as possible and keep losses to an absolute minimum.
That’s not all: as well as identifying the water loss and quantifying the amount of water loss in cubic metres per day, a data-based, automated system also reduces the traditional manual effort involved in the search. With strategically placed bulk meters, the complexity of water management can be further reduced. The data transmitted from the DMAs already enables the leak to be localized. By then infusing artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics, the location of the leak can be estimated without manual effort or hardware use.
While the costs of domestic smart meters, including antennas and bulk meters, can add up, the annual savings soon outweigh the costs
Perhaps the greatest advantage is that all these functions can be realized automatically, continuously, and without time delay. A digital, data-based tool thus continuously analyses and monitors the condition of the water network and alerts employees to problems – targeted and prioritized. While large amounts of data are processed and analysed in the background, municipal utilities can focus on what is important: maintaining infrastructure and providing enough high-quality water. It’s a very simple way to proactively counter the future of water scarcity and take control of a water network.
How BWC is benefitting from its data-driven strategy
Since implementing its water loss management platform in 2023, BWC has realised a raft of benefits. First, since it has largely automated – and thereby expedited – the process of identifying NRW, it is benefitting from reduced unsustainable water losses. BWC’s data-driven strategy, combined with new organizational processes, has resulted in it halving its water losses, with it dropping its NRW from an annual average of 9-10% between 2017 to 2018 to an average of 4-5% between 2019 and 2023.
Smart meters combined with an intelligent water loss management platform have established BWC as a Danish standard for digital innovation
As well as flagging new leaks faster and more easily, BWC has been able to identify, locate and repair existing leaks, which may have been hidden for several months or even years. Every water distribution system across the world has a lot of these small, hard-to-identify background leaks, the cost of which soon add up. Even once identified, these types of leaks can result in needlessly expensive repair work. For example, it is estimated that a daily loss of 24 m³ running for 180 days would cost BWC approximately 2,000 euros. Thanks to its new data-driven approach, BWC has already found and eliminated four such background leaks, saving it approximately 8,000 euros to date.
BWC has also been able to optimise the way it organises its labour. With automated and tedious tasks performed by the software, technical teams can be more efficient in the field. For example, every morning, an operational manager and his team can assess the situation of the network – a process that takes just ten minutes thanks to the water loss management platform. Urgent operations, such as leak repairs, can be prioritised immediately in the zone indicated by the software. Longer-term “at risk” projects, such as pipe replacement, can also be identified at a glance.
Improving the lives of customers and the local community
It isn’t just BWC that benefits from its advanced water loss management platform. Customers now benefit from new services such as instant leak warnings that can prevent significant damage from occurring in their homes. In the first quarter of 2024, BWC was able to warn 235 customers about in-house issues: 160 had leaks with a flow between 5 and 30 litres per hour (l/h), 25 between 30 to 100 l/h, 20 between 100 and 500 l/h and 12 were above 5,000 l/h.
Automated text messages can be sent to the consumer as soon as the household meter detects an internal leak. This prevents additional damage to floors, furniture and other materials and also avoids the growth of mould that can be hazardous to health. Moreover, insurance bills may be lowered.
Detecting leaks in the local area earlier also reduces the extent of damage to roads, pavements or pipework, for example. This means that faster and simpler repairs can be carried out, reducing the need for road closures or temporary traffic restrictions – measures that often result in congestion and saving significant sums of money.
A strategy that is paying off
The combined benefits that BWC is realising result in lower overall operational expenditure. While the total costs of the domestic smart meters, including the antennas and the bulk meters, can add up, the annual savings from lower annual water losses, reduced downtime, decreased repair costs, improved efficiency, better technical performance and improved control, soon outweigh the costs. That’s without considering that providing more value to customers could allow the company to increase its annual subscription fees.
Ultimately, smart meters combined with an intelligent water loss management platform have enabled Neergaard to realise his vision of establishing Brønderslev as a Danish standard for digital innovation. This technology, he believes, is the foundation of a modern water company and the data can be one of their most important assets.