DEWA Enhances Water Management and Distribution Efficiency through Smart Systems
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Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) continues its efforts to develop its infrastructure in line with the demand forecast for the upcoming years considering Dubai’s demographic and economic growth.
This aims to enhance Dubai’s position as a global city and a preferred destination for living, working, business, and tourism. DEWA’s current production capacity is 495 million imperial gallons per day (MIGD) of desalinated water.
DEWA is working to increase the visibility and management of the water distribution network and improve the automation and efficiency of operations and the reliability of water supplies.
This has consolidated its global excellence in water network losses through various innovative technologies and smart systems including:
Glass Reinforced Epoxy (GRE) pipes
DEWA uses Glass Reinforced Epoxy (GRE) pipes for water distribution, which offer many benefits including erosion resistance compared to traditional pipes.
Water Smart Distribution Management System
The Water Smart Distribution Management System increases the visibility and management of the water distribution network. It also improves the automation and efficiency of operations, and the reliability of water supplies and has consolidated DEWA’s global excellence in water network losses.
The Water Smart Distribution Management System has a centralised round-the-clock system for remote control and monitoring, as well as innovative smart equipment and systems.
The system also uses Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) installed at interconnections between the transmission and distribution pipelines.
These are connected to the advanced water SCADA (Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition) and hydraulic-management systems. The system improves fault location and isolation, leading to lower costs.
Water leakage simulator
DEWA has innovated an advanced, smart facility to simulate various leakage cases of water transmission pipelines. This allows evaluation, development and testing of new leak detection techniques.
DEWA developed the facility using software and hardware, based on the Internet of Things (IoT), allowing for complete remote monitoring and control of the facility.
The facility includes smart transmission pipes equipped with sensors to monitor hydraulic indicators, collect data on water pressure, flow, and temperature, as well as control an IoT platform that stores data.
The developed algorithm was able to identify leakage events with 94.4% accuracy.
Among the most prominent innovations by DEWA using AI to enhance efficiency of the water network is the ‘iService’, which utilises meter diagnostics data to detect service interruptions and initiate rectification procedures automatically; Meter Tampering and Fraud detection that is based on smart meter notifications; and the Hydronet project, that DEWA has developed to use AI and Deep Learning to remotely monitor and control the water network in Dubai.
The project can be integrated with any SCADA system and provides real-time insights into the current state of the network. It can also fix leaks in seconds without human intervention.
This increases the efficiency of the water network and the pipeline isolation in Dubai, saving time and effort. The project has won the Silver Team Idea of the Year award at Ideas America 2020.
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