OptiPressure - Water Pressure & Leakage Reduction
OptiPressureTM - Water Pressure and Leakage Reduction
Adelaide, South Australia – Working in conjunction with Hunter Water Corporation, Optimatics has developed a specialised analysis tool to identify the optimal water supply infrastructure required to minimise water leakage by reducing pressure in mains. The reduced pressure also has a significant impact on extending the life of the infrastructure assets. This new tool is OptiPressure.
The process works by optimizing the capital expenditure a water utility will outlay on valves in an attempt to reduce the pressure, such as shut off valves, pressure regulating valves (PRV) or modulated valves that open and close depending on flows and time of day. All optional locations for these valves are placed in the network model and an economic cost of water is selected.
To best reduce leakage, OptiPressure then detects the optimal locations to establish reduced pressure zones. It selects the PRV locations and settings, including changes required throughout the day if the valve is modulated. As OptiPressure is trading off the cost of assets against the value of water saved, thus increasing the economic cost of water, OptiPressure selects the optimal assets to reduce leakage to a satisfactory level.
Hunter Water is the water and wastewater service provider for over half a million people in the lower Hunter region, the sixth largest urban area in Australia, located in New South Wales' Hunter Valley. There are 213,913 properties connected to the water network and 202,103 to the wastewater network.
The area of operation provided by Hunter Water covers 5,475km2, delivering on average 200 megalitres of water a day using assets worth in excess of $2 billion.
