Availing of new Open Source technologies in the ICT field, the project has experimented innovative hardware and software solutions, that allow an aware use of the water resource at the individual user level and the grey and meteoric water reuse inside buildings. The technological solutions tested are: 1) Technologies for real-time monitoring of indoor and outdoor water consumption; 2) Platform for processing and communicating water consumption to managers and users; 3) Systems for the management, recovery and reuse of meteoric and grey water at building scale; 4) Tools for assessing the economic-environmental sustainability of urban water systems.
GST4Water tested new technologies for saving and for the sustainability in the water sector
1-2) The kit exploits open radio protocols and allows the manager to choice the smart meters to use without any limitations. The data are made accessible to users, to gain awareness and identify losses inside their home, and to the billing manager who can also identify network losses. 3) The designing software for green solutions takes into account the real local rainfall and the characteristics of the users where they are positioned. 4) Software for quantifying sustainability indicators also encourages water savings at different scales
The kit can be used by Water Utilities for the automatic monitoring of water consumption and to offer a leakage control service to end users.
Prototype of the monitoring kit and examples of outdoor and indoor counters
The water consumption monitoring system of at user level in Gorino Ferrarese (FE)
To evaluate the benefits deriving from the implementation of the proposed monitoring system, which allows for the memorization of the consumption time series at the single user level, a field laboratory was created in Gorino (FE), a location located in the Po Delta Park, with an extension of about 3 Km2 and in which there are about 650 inhabitants. 292 smart meters were installed and the data collected by them with a variable time step between 5 minutes and 1 hour were elaborated to characterize the behavior of the single users. The results highlighted a total of 192 losses, 54 of which above 10 l / h and the remaining between 1 and 10 l / h. An algorithm was also implemented that automatically identifies the possible presence of leakage based on the nocturnal measurements. Another result was to highlight losses in the network based on a comparison between the flow rate entering the district of Gorino and the sum of the flows consumed by all users. With this comparison, the level of loss within the district was characterized with continuity over time. Finally, some users were given the credentials to access the web platform and view their water consumption in real time
Partners involved in the Gorino application: CADF: manager of the Integrated Water Service in province of Ferrara; Xeo4: companies in the ICT sector
It is necessary to identify business partners for the transformation of the monitoring kit into an industrial product and for its widespread application in the territory
Water consumption user interface