Unitywater and Southern Downs Regional Council’s network of smart sensors in Stanthorpe has prevented more than 32,000,000 litres from being lost from the drought-prone community’s drinking water supplies and saved local residents and Council more than $90,000 since being installed in June 2023.
Stanthorpe’s smart water network combines the Council’s 2,700 smart water meters with Unitywater’s five flow meters installed in partnership with Detection Services and a central event management system.
Rhett Duncan, Executive Manager of Customer Delivery at Unitywater, said the Stanthorpe trial demonstrated the effectiveness of applying a fully integrated network of smart sensors and meters to traditional underground water infrastructure.
“The smart water network enables real-time monitoring of water usage across four suburb-sized district-metered areas,” Duncan said. “Using the Takadu Central Event Management system, we can combine communication and data analysis information together to quickly identify and address leaks. Volumetric flow meters use electromagnetic induction to measure liquid velocity at the entry point of each district-metered area to capture the flow entering a suburb. This data is compared against actual customer consumption measured through smart meters at each property connection, with any difference indicating a potential leak that is then investigated. Being able to act quickly has helped us retain more than 13 Olympic swimming pools of precious water supplies within the local network and delivered big cost savings for the people of Stanthorpe.”
What has been achieved in Stanthorpe?
One notable outcome of implementing the smart network was the rapid identification and repair of a significant leak at a household on Minna Street.
Buried under 1.6 meters of earth and exacerbated by blasted rock, the full radial pipe fracture was losing approximately 20 litres per minute. Repairing this leak is estimated to have saved the Stanthorpe residents up to $12,000 each annually.
Southern Downs Regional Council Mayor Melissa Hamilton said the council is pleased to partner with Unitywater to operate the smart water network.
“Every hour, data from our water network is sent across the 5G network to a monitoring team based on the Sunshine Coast, who monitor it 24/7 and let us know when we’ve got a leak so we can fix it faster than ever before.” Mayor Hamilton said. “The introduction of this technology has delivered real benefits to Council, primarily the ability to immediately identify and investigate an abnormally high-water reading alerts to determine if the source is a leak. This trial is a testament to our commitment to water security for residents, Granite Belt growers, and tourism operators in Stanthorpe and its surrounding villages. From a dire position in drought, Stanthorpe now has one of the smartest water networks in Australia, with the ability to provide real-time water usage at both the customer and supplier levels, providing transparency and awareness to the community. We might never be able to fully understand the weather, but we can now understand where our water is going and stretch out those supplies for longer.”
Southern Downs Regional Council expects the smart water network to continue reducing water loss, enhancing the accuracy of water rate billing, and encouraging community participation in water-saving practices.
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