Byron Shire Council

Using Advanced Pressure Management to reduce background leakage by 60m3/day

Challenges

Byron Shire, located on the far north coast of New South Wales, has a population of 34,574, yet attracts over 1 million visitors each year. Some areas of their network suffered from high burst frequency and high levels of leakage, which was proving expensive to maintain and reduce. It was decided to further reduce network pressures whilst ensuring adequate supply and pressure to their transient population of tourists. Pressure management had been implemented in the past but was set to deliver the same fixed pressure outlet day and night. This led to much higher pressures than necessary, which resulted in sustained levels of high leakage,burst rates and customer consumption.

Byron Shire Council were seeking a solution that allowed them to automatically maintain adequate levels of pressure for their customers, whose consumption patterns vary seasonally and increase network efficiency.

Project overview

Working with our partner, Aquip Flowservices, i2O’s Advanced PRV control solution was installed at the inlet to the ‘School’ DMA. Upon commissioning the system, it was set to deliver the same fixed outlet pressure as before. Subsequently, oNet’s machine learning algorithms learnt the hydraulic characteristics of the DMA and constructed a headloss relationship at various flow rates. The engineers at Byron Shire then instructed the system to deliver specific critical point pressures during the day and night using oNet’s automatic optimisation mode. Upon successful implementation of this, and without receiving customer complaints for low pressure, Byron Shire proceeded to reduce pressures even further, with the confidence that oNet would ensure accurate pressure delivery with smooth pressure transitions.

Outcomes

• Total Daily Flow reduced by 10%
• Pressure at the Critical Point reduced from 40m to 25m at night
• Minimum Night Flow reduced by 28%
• Background leakage reduced by an estimated 60 m3/da
• No low pressure complaints received since i2O optimisation began