How remote reading made invisible leaks visible
Vitens, the largest drinking water company in the Netherlands, deployed connected digital meters to monitor consumption continuously. The result: household leaks that had gone unnoticed for months started to be detected almost immediately.
The case in brief
A DMA (District Metered Area) is a zone of the distribution network that is isolated and metered independently to monitor how much water enters and how much is consumed. When the difference between the two grows, there is a leak somewhere in the district.
By replacing mechanical meters with connected digital meters, Vitens moved from sporadic manual readings (once or twice a year) to frequent, automatic data. That made it possible to cross-check households' real consumption against the flow entering the district and locate continuous anomalous consumption —the typical pattern of a leak— that had previously stayed hidden between readings.
Before and after
The data, in charts
Customers with a detected leak
When the digital meters are connected, 1–2% with a continuous leak come to light.
Time to detect a leak
From months (manual reading) to practically immediate (remote reading).
How the solution works
1. Metering at the point of consumption. Each home has an ultrasonic meter (with no moving parts to wear out) that records consumption at high frequency.
2. Wireless communication. The meters send their readings by low-power radio, with no need for an operator to come and read them.
3. District balance (DMA). The system compares the water entering the zone with the sum of what households consume. A persistent difference indicates a leak in the network or in a service connection.
4. Alert and action. Anomalous continuous consumption is flagged automatically, so the customer can be alerted or a crew sent out before the problem grows.
Bibliography and sources
· Kamstrup — "Vitens" customer reference and the Multical 21 family of smart water meters (ultrasonic meter for remote reading and leak detection).
www.kamstrup.com
· Vitens — Public drinking water company in the Netherlands (provinces of Friesland, Overijssel, Gelderland, Utrecht and Flevoland), on network digitalisation and smart district management (Smart DMA).
www.vitens.nl
Note: the figures (1–2% of customers with a leak, average flow ~5 l/min and ~3 million m³/year) come from Kamstrup's public communication on the deployment with Vitens. The data is provided for information purposes.
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