Abbotsford BC Selects DemandAnalyst To Power Its Smart Water Network

DemandAnalyst Will Compute Accurate, Customer-Specific Water Usage Patterns Directly from AMIs for Real-Time Modeling and Management of Abbotsford Water Distribution System

Innovyze, a leading global innovator of business analytics software and technologies for smart water infrastructure, recently announced that the City of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, has chosen the company’s DemandAnalyst to complement its smart water network modeling innovation initiative. The purchase will enable the City to directly import its entire Itron (Liberty Lake, WA) meter population and automatically determine accurate, representative baseline demands and associated diurnal patterns for its comprehensive water distribution network model. In addition, Abbotsford can now continually update nodal demand values directly from its Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system to power decision making.

Commenting on the expanded solution, Jeff Cowburn, Hydraulic Network Specialist for Abbotsford said, “Today, the water industry faces unique challenges. The need for water conservation, data accuracy and timeliness, operational efficiency and maintenance of distribution system hydraulic and water quality integrity has never been more pressing. Innovyze smart water modeling solutions give us the power tools we need to help us effectively manage our water distribution system in real time. These capabilities are powerful aids in improving our water system performance and resiliency and reducing inefficiencies.”

Water distribution network modeling is the most effective and viable way of predicting system behavior to help solve a variety of design, operational and water quality problems. One critical tool for ensuring reliable network model predictions is the accurate estimation of daily water demands. DemandAnalyst is designed expressly to give water utilities the accurate real-time water demand estimates and diurnal variations they need to power their distribution network models. Armed with a better understanding of their systems’ spatial and temporal patterns of water use, water utility planners can better optimize system operations and capital planning, improve conservation measures, minimize leakage and energy consumption, meet regulatory compliance and deliver superior customer service.

Accurately determining water consumption and its spatial and temporal distribution throughout the water network is a key element of real-time modeling. Network models are loaded with customer-specific (e.g., commercial, residential, industrial) demands at the network nodes. All supporting sources, distribution pipelines and available storage within the water distribution system contribute to meeting these nodal demands. Most water utilities record water consumption data manually on a monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly basis. This infrequent data collection is sufficient for billing purposes, but provides limited information on actual water consumption behavior, leakage, and seasonal variation — data needed for real-time network modeling.

Smart meters connected to data loggers enable continuous monitoring of water consumption, providing sufficient data points to help determine water usage patterns. Loaded with advanced data management, correlation and analytics, DemandAnalyst fully automates the process of calculating and allocating nodal demands and their diurnal patterns directly from smart meters. It lets water utilities go beyond metering and billing to true intelligent water management. This is the ultimate approach to developing the most efficient and reliable drinking water distribution system and minimizing non-revenue water.

DemandAnalyst is built atop ArcGIS (Esri, Redlands, California) as a complementary module of the industry-leading InfoWater smart network modeling solution. Extremely easy to learn and use, it can be installed, up and running in just a few minutes on a utility’s local computer.

“The City of Abbotsford has always been at the forefront of smart water network modeling innovation,” said Paul F. Boulos, Ph.D., BCEEM, Hon.D.WRE, Dist.D.NE, Dist.M.ASCE, NAE, Innovyze’s President, COO and Chief Technical Officer. “We’re proud to know that our industry-leading solutions will continue to be helping this progressive enterprise leverage its GIS and AMI investment to optimize the operation and management of its water distribution system and better serve its customers.”

About Innovyze
Innovyze is a leading global provider of wet infrastructure business analytics software solutions designed to meet the technological needs of water and wastewater utilities, government agencies, and engineering organizations worldwide. Its clients include the majority of the largest UK, Australasia and North American cities, foremost utilities on all five continents, and ENR top-rated design firms. With unparalleled expertise and offices in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, the Innovyze connected portfolio of best-in-class product lines empowers thousands of engineers to competitively plan, manage, design, protect, operate and sustain highly efficient and reliable infrastructure systems, and provides an enduring platform for customer success. For more information, visit www.innovyze.com.