AEGEA, a large private water and sanitation company in Brazil, serves more than 21 million people in 153 cities across the country. The utility manages public concessions in the entire water cycle, including supply, collection, and sewage treatment, according to the profile and needs of each town.
In 2021, AEGEA turned its attention to improving water services and asset management decisions in Manaus, capital of the state Amazonas. The utility initiated a pilot project in the district metered area of São Jorge, which serves 10,000 customers, to optimize operational activities and prevent pipe bursts. The scope of work included a 61.4-kilometer network to monitor operations of the Manaus water supply system.
Remote Monitoring and Analysis
Situated in the Amazon Rainforest and isolated from other main cities, Manaus’ position and geography created a unique challenge for water providers. AEGEA needed to find a solution capable of remotely monitoring and analyzing the water systems in the area: this would save on fuel and labor costs, and would enable the utility to focus on predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance would extend the operating life of the infrastructure and, in turn, reduce the resources required to keep it running safely and reliably.
Using Bentley’s OpenFlows WaterSight platform, AEGEA created and curated a digital twin that brings SCADA, GIS, hydraulic modeling, and customer information into a connected data environment.
Using a digital twin, the utility can deliver cost-effective operations and maintenance strategies in real time. Because digital twins can be used at different scales, OpenFlows WaterSight utilizes real-time data to create a model that continuously monitors all infrastructure assets, including pipes, pumps, valves, and tanks. The scalable environment provides utilities access to critical system and individual asset performance information to enhance operations, maintenance, and decision-making.
During system deployment, the Bentley support team assisted AEGEA during the first eight weeks after gaining access to the systems’ sensors, billing, and hydraulic modeling information. Two separate sensor databases were connected — one in Oracle and the other in SQL Server — pushing historical and live data with 15 minutes registration frequency, as well as enabling the pattern curve calculation for each.
Anticipating Complications
The solution enables AEGEA to leverage engineering hydraulic models easily and successfully for daily operations and maintenance. The utility can then import the data to WaterSight’s cloud to run real-time simulations of network events, such as pipe breaks, pump shutdowns, valve operations, and fires.
“Bentley’s OpenFlows digital twin solution allows us to improve our system,” said Lais Regis Salvino, digital infrastructure engineer at AEGEA. “With digital twins, we can analyze the behavior of our systems with real data and determine the best way to operate them. We can check the level of the tanks, and determine if we have any leaks in our network before they become a problem.”
Having all the information within a single digital twin solution provides the utility with additional insights, including water balances, tank performance, forecasts, and more — all without having to conduct multiple site visits. In addition, with the support of real-time simulation and automatic events generation capabilities, AEGEA is able to increase its awareness of and its response times to network complications. WW
Published in WaterWorld magazine, September 2022.
