The existing water distribution infrastructures in most of the urban areas are aging and encountering difficulties in coping up increasing demand with significant water losses & very high NRW. The water supply systems are facing various operational challenges such as manual control of equipments & sub systems, lack of real time status on process parameters at one centralised place, time consuming decentralised operations, lack of trainings & capacity building of system operators, potential human error, negligence on timely required actions/maintenance.
Whenever any major failure/breakdown occurs within the system, the utilities must be able to identify and resolve the problem with minimal disruption in water supply, as far as possible, partial impact limited to few customers in case of 24/7 network water supply. Also, for any routine maintenance activities for storage reservoirs, treatment plants and electromechanical systems, the water supply system should be able to function without any interruption in 24×7 supply to the customers. However, there are design challenges to embed high reliability in conventional system design approach. Utilities to adopt best engineering practices for design, operation, and maintenance of 24/7 distribution system. Redundancy, standby philosophy, and availability of key equipments/sub-systems play a major role in high reliability design. Also, large variations in raw water/source water quality comparing to the design conditions, impact operations, and the utilities face difficulties in maintaining the drinking water quality supplied to the network. Sometimes, it resulted into very high dose of chlorine, just to ensure no bacteria are present, without thought on the disinfection by products it may carry. With the advent of technology, bacteriological tests can be conducted faster in few hours (otherwise lab takes days) so that proper control over chlorine dosing can be taken timely and mitigate Disinfection by Product (DBP) issues to maintain drinking water quality within standard requirements.
There is a real need for an integrated operations management right from the water source, lifting, transmission, pre & post treatment, storage, and distribution up to the customer’s connection metering point by adopting international benchmarks (Key Performance Indicators- KPIs) and setting incremental targets to improve upon. Integration of process for improving system’s performance need proper solutions. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) provide effective solution which interfaces with all subsystems. This way utilities can adopt first step in Smart Water Grid approach to improve system operation, maintain 24×7 equitable supply with required water quality throughout the network, minimise NRW, manage leaks/breakdowns more effectively, and reduce O&M cost, repairs time and life cycle cost of the water supply projects. PPP model have potential to achieve these objectives at faster pace.