Intervento di Stephen Galea al convegno "Smart Water nella città del Futuro" - Milano, 22/10/2015

1. Oct. 22nd 2015
Palazzo Turati, Milano
Advanced Smart Metering:
Malta Water Project
Ing Stephen Galea St John

2. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
• Three Islands – Malta, Gozo & Comino
• Country with characteristics of a City
• Warm climate with little rain
• No rivers or lakes
• Scarcity was rife until 1990s
• Blend of RO & groundwater
• Successful leakage management strategy
The Maltese Islands

3. Leakage Levels
• Leakage has been brought down
from around 3,900 m3/h in the
mid-90s to around 400 m3/h now.
• Correspondingly, ILI in the mid-90s
was around 20 but was down to 1.9
for 2014
Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano

4. System Demand
Real Losses
Apparent Losses
Billed Amount Unmetered Amount
Billed Amount
Real Losses
Apparent Losses
Non-Revenue Water
Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
• Real losses are the actual leakages from
the network
• Apparent water losses are essentially
those losses that result from water being
actually consumed, but not paid for.

5. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
1 – Water Theft
2 – Meter under-registration
3 – Meter Reading/Data Errors
4 – Billing/Accounting Errors
* Previous components must be in place
The Toolbox Approach to Manage AL
• Looking for the ‘how’ in
managing AL. This is carried
out by applying a toolbox
approach in a sequential
fashion.
Existing
Apparent
Loss
Tools that control 1
component (No. 1)
Toolsthatcontrol
2components
(Nos.1,2)
Tools that control 3
components (Nos. 1,2,3)
Toolsthatcontrol
4components
(Nos.1,2,3,4)
• Site Audits
• Metering
Strategy
• Water
Inflow
Control
• GIS
• AMM
• OMR
*
*
*

6. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Integrated Utilities Business Systems
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING -
Theme 1
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
- Theme 2
WATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM -
Theme 4
AUTOMATIC METER MANAGEMENT -
Theme 3
PROJECT PLANNING,
SIMULATION,
SCHEDULING
GENERATION
PROJECT PLANNING-
DISTRIBUTION
WORKS CONTROL
ASSET MANAGMENT
WORKFORCE
MANAGMENT
PROCUREMENT
NETWORK PLANNING,
ANALYSIS, CONTROL,
FAULT DETECTION,
MAINTENANCE,
FORECASTING
GEOGRAPHICAL
INFORMATION SYSTEM WATER DATA
COLLECTION
AUTOMATED METER
READING
MOBILE WORKING
WEB-BASED
CUSTOMER SERVICE
INTEGRATOR PORTAL
(crm/billing/gis)
CUSTOMER ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT
TROUBLE TICKETING &
MANAGEMENT
BILLING
RECEIVABLES
MANAGEMENT
INVENTORY
PROPERTY
MANAGEMENT
FINANCIAL &
MANAGEMENT
ACCOUNTING
CONTACT CENTRE
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
DOCUMENT MANAGMENT
EMS COMMUNICATION
INFRASTRUCTURE
WATER
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
&
SCADA
CUSTOMER WATER
DATA MANAGEMENT
WATER
LOSSES
RECONCILIATION
ASSET MANAGMENT

7. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
AMM: What did WSC go for?
• Solution from Ondeo Systems (Suez Environnement)
• Fixed network, 2-layer technology (RF transmitters,
receivers)
• 169 MHz VHF: EU authorized channel for remote
reading
• Long range transmission – no repeaters
• 15-year battery life
• MIUs have cross-meter compatibility

8. Progress so far
• Receiver layer – around 260 gateways to
cover Malta & Gozo
• 222k modules out of a total of 260k
customers (85%)
• Started the process of fine-tuning the
receiver layer to improve reachability
Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano

9. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
• No more manual meter reading
• More timely bills
• Less estimates – leading to
improved cash flow
• Water audits
• Abnormal consumption warnings
Some Major AMM Benefits

10. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Financials
Annual
expenditure
before
Project
Annual
expenditure
after
Project
Tangible
benefits
provided by
Project
Net annual gains
after Project
Intangible
benefits
€0.6M €1.73M €1.55M €0.6M - €M1.73
+ €1.55M =
€0.42M
Customer
Related
benefits
Before After
Meter readers €0.6M pa Field
Maintenance
€200k pa
License €80k pa
Upgrades €50k pa
Depreciation €1.4M pa
€0.6M pa €1.73M pa

11. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
GIS Strategy
• WSC as a GIS-Centric entity
• Alignment of GIS strategy with Corporate
strategy
• Improve accuracy and integrity of spatial
information
• Integrate GIS and non-GIS applications
• Share data efficiently and quickly

12. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
• Analysis and Monitoring of various AMM related operations.
• Real Time Gateway alarms
• Reachability monitoring and optimisation of RF reception layer
• Coordination and planning meter/module installations
• Meter Module alarms
• Support to other WSC operations and reporting.
• Customer Care
• Distribution Zone Consumption Analysis (water audits)
• Internal leakage analysis
• Senior Management Analysis
Linking AMM to GIS – the AQUADOT package

13. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
From tabular to Spatial Reporting

14. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Meter/module Alarm Report Comparisons.

15. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Meter-Gateway
Reachability Analysis
Meter Reachability indicators

16. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Actual coverage in May 2015 Actual Coverage in Aug 2015
Gateway Reachability Monitoring and Optimisation

17. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Executive Dashboard – a new management tool

18. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Consumer water consumption patterns
Consumer water leak alarms
Customer Care Supplementary Support

19. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
WSC Live Public Web Portal.

20. Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano
Final comments…and way forward
• Smart cities need smart solutions to manage traditional
issues
• It is difficult to find a one-size-fits-all solution
• Putting GIS at the centre of operations
• The merging of different solutions is often a powerful and
flexible tool
• Beware of data overload!

21. Thanks for listening !
Smart Water in the city of the future
22 ottobre 2015, Palazzo Turati Milano