Home / Trends / Newsroom / Contents

Smart water meter plays the foundation of the Smart water network and provides us the clues of the flow information underground. It could help managers to monitor the overall water consumption more accurately and detect the water leakage from the piping by means of in-build smart functions effectively. The applications of smart water meter therefore have already become the necessary international index of metering trends and the development in smart cities. 

Smart water meters manufactured by Energy Management System CO., LTD (EMS) with the Class C metering performance and the patented NMS (No-Magnets) can record MNF (Minimum Nighttime Flow), monthly water consumption, forward / back flow consumption separately. Furthermore, tampering behavior, operation status and static status are parts of the innovative developments. The innovative design has won the invention award in Invention & New Product Exposition in Pittsburgh, U.S.A. and Taiwan Excellence 2016. That is to say that the smart water meter plays the significant roles not only to measure the consumption but also to reduce the leakage.  

Leakage Alarm, most impressive function to detect leakage, can bring consumer awareness when detecting the leakage. For instance, while consumer has not been using water for 24 hours but the water is running through the piping network continuously, the smart water meter will detect the possible leakage itself and display alarming symbol, leakage days and leakage amounts. 

Consumption logs, most valuable function in DMA applications, users can apply water balance concept to instantly calculate the leaks. In addition, smart water meter can provide instant flow rate, totalizer, and the previous 2 months consumption or latest 8 days consumption, specific MNF (2:00 a.m.~4:00 a.m.) consumption logs. All of which surly provide great analyzing tools to reduce NRW (Non-Revenue Water). 

In addition to the management functions of the smart water meter, the most important issue is to present the data to the users. One of the benefits of smart water meter is to upload the flow data to the clouding system via wireless transmission (GSM/GPRS/RF/LoRa) technology. By doing this, user can recognize 24 hours consumptions, analyze piping network system and optimize supply network, from industrial factory to high-rise buildings. As we have known from the experience, water is essential to the life of people, and we can analyze personal behaviors by checking the water consumption, like taking a bath, cooking the meal, washing the car. After we have collected much data via smart water meter, we can optimize the supply and demand of the water, making every drop count.  

Regarding the flow data monitoring and analysis, the clouding systems provide us real-time consumption, comparison of different periods in geographic information system. The following tool, Average Moving Alarm Range, combines statistics analysis and standard deviation concepts to calculate upper/lower alarms and set up different alarm ranges from big data automatically. 

As to analyze user consumption trends, the user can check consumption distribution analysis, consumption contribution rates to know the flow consumption ranges and the operation time of the water meter to see if the water meter is suitable or not (too big or too small). 

The flow analysis chart has indicates that most flow ranges contribute to little range, which recommends the user to replace a smaller water meter.

TWC (Taiwan Water Corporation) and TWD (Taipei Water Department) has extensively installed smart water meter, wireless datalogger to collect and transmit flow, pressure and quality information to AMR (Automatic Metered Reading) system. All large consumption users have developed clouding system with the smart water meter to monitor consumption 24 hours so as to check every drop of water used in daily life. In the era of water shortage, it’s our duty to use water more effectively and not to waste water, so we can provide better living environment. 

Most pipes are buried underground, so it’s hard to detect the leakage and most water are lost without notice and we still need to pay the billing for unnoticed leakage. So, if we can find out leakage as early as possible, we can save and reduce lost water. The following example is taken from National Yang-Ming University, Taiwan, which is mostly located in the hills. As the billing for monthly water is significantly increased, so we have install smart water meter and apply water balance calculation in finding the leakage, we have successfully found out some areas consumed huge amounts of water. So, we have sent out a repair/maintenance team to visit the site and found the lost water reaches to 60 m3 per day. Without the support of smart water meter, we may need more time and labors to check and validate the leaking area. 

Leaking holes in Campus

In the era of IOT generation, the sensor (smart water meter) will better assist us not only to manage consumption but also to reduce leakage. We anticipate to install many more sensors to get much data in order to calculate cost of water, optimize the production processes in factories, and protect home security and seniors living care in every aspects of our life. As we have known the population of aged people has grown enormously, but we don’t have enough caretakers to look after seniors at home, so the sensors (smart water meter) can help us monitor the behaviors of the seniors 24 hours a day. If the sensors found out the seniors keep using water or not using water for the certain periods, something wrong may happen. So, sensors will send out alarm to the relatives of the seniors to prevent tragedies. 

With widely installed smart water meter, we can get much data to find the leakage, care the seniors, optimize supply and demand and many more benefits waiting for us to explore. So, with the latest development of smart water meter, the management of the water will become more efficiently than ever.