Consultants involved in the design and specification of integrated solutions for the optimisation of water utilities can now benefit from dedicated support in the design of intelligent architectures.

Global specialist in energy management Schneider Electric provides comprehensive “smart water” solutions, dedicated tools that are now available to support consultants and engineering companies in the design, efficiency and optimisation of intelligent water architectures.

“Utilities need to optimise costs and efficiency,” says Ravi Saman, water and wastewater vertical manager at Schneider Electric South Africa. “The design tools enable consultants to deliver comprehensive specifications for water utilities, reduce consultant project time and continuously improve customer experience.

“Many factors affect the landscape of today’s global water industry. Consultants and engineers are the backbone of the design and implementation of smart water solutions, which enable utilities to improve visibility and fully control their operations.”

Saman adds that integrated solutions not only provide enhanced process control, butby processing data in real time, utilities are able to take action quickly in order to save water and energy, reduce maintenance costs, optimise compliance and security, and deliver increased customer satisfaction.

“Schneider Electric provides water utility consultants and engineers with dedicated tools to help identify and analyse existing situations, as well as design and specify integrated solutions for smart water architectures.”

The tools include ready to use specifications, white papers, system user guides that allow the prescription of advanced solutions based on EcoStruxure, Schneider Electric’s innovative platform to build unified environments.

Efficiency, longevity and reliability of the utility’s network of pipes, pumps, reservoirs and valves are improved by better measuring, collecting and analysing data from a wide range of network events and making that information available in realtime to operators.

“Such reliable information enables automated control and optimisation of complex processes and timely decision-making regarding areas that can benefit from proactive measures or corrective actions,” adds Saman. “Incident management tools identify what area of the network needs to be isolated for repair or maintenance, which customers will be affected and help crews to manage and optimise their time.”

Schneider Electric offers comprehensive smart water solutions that can be adapted to meet the needs of the customer, including hardware, software and services as well as engineering and project management, energy performance and maintenance plans.

“These solutions address the entire water industry cycle to cut design, manufacturing and operating costs, ensure the availability of water treatment, guarantee, manage and optimise distribution 24 x 7; supervise pumping networks; and help adapt and upgrade existing infrastructure to changes in water quality regulations and requirements,” concludes Saman.