AMI infrastructure, digital twins, intelligent asset management, geographic information systems, 5G, and artificial intelligence will be the technological tendencies of 2022 in water management according to Idrica.Worldwide trends that will bring innovative use cases with potential to revolutionize the sector.
In a world in which the data is the most valuable asset, AMI infrastructure (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) are key due to the volume of information that they are capable of generating.Due to their high level of sensorization, compared to other IoT systems in the water sector, these infrastructure can improve all business processes, as well as help companies and consumers make better decisions.
For their part, digital twins, understood as the virtual copy of the distribution system that simulates their behavior, help make better decisions thanks to the holistic vision they provide from the system, and their capacity to simulation of real and fictitious scenarios.In this way, water managers can analyze in advance the response of the network to any circumstance of the operation, it has occurred or not in the past, to assess different scenarios.
In recent years, the most advanced managers have incorporated intelligent asset management to their processes.Fruit of the sensorization of infrastructure and the implementation of other technologies such as micromedition, SIG and SCADAS, operators have an increasing volume of information available.Smart management comes to integrate and order all data to make better decisions.Therefore, the sector is incorporating it with the ultimate purpose of maximizing efficiency, with important economic and environmental benefits, thanks to cost reduction and energy consumption.
Geographic information systems (GIS) have become an essential tool for water managers in order to extract the value of their data to improve their processes.Through these systems, companies can integrate and represent a growing flow of information.In practice, any data with a geospatial component is likely to be represented in a SIG.With this, the value of the location and its information is unified in the same tool, obtaining a means where to manage it centrally, offering crucial information to guide different actions and solve problems.For example, to supervise the changes made by water companies in their infrastructure.
On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping to perform a more sustainable management of water resource.Within AI, Machine Learning (ML) has great potential in the sector.One of its main advantages is the automation of those expensive processes to manually manage, improving the precision of the results, calculated by a great computing speed thanks to the infrastructure that supports them.Thus, managers can make better decisions when having real -time information about what is happening in infrastructure.Other branches of AI, which are also being applied to water, are voice and vision recognition systems, expert systems, natural language processing (PLN) and robots.
Finally, 5G is not just a new generation of communications, but it comes to open new business opportunities that were not possible before.Water managers globally are betting on the transformation of their processes, as a way to achieve greater water and energy efficiency.On this path, it is vital to extract the value of the data obtained through sensorization, and do it safely, to make better decisions.
Thanks to its low latency and its ability to connect millions of devices, 5G will become a key ally for these companies.In addition, in a context of searching for greater transparency, this technology will help to release and democratize the data, making it more accessible.The range of available technologies will benefit all managers, regardless of their degree of digitalization.
These six technologies that Idrica define, explains and reflects on the newly published reportLine with the sixth sustainable development objective (SDGs).The digital transformation of the processes is no longer an option, but rather the way to go to offer the quality service demanded by the 21st century citizen.
Climate change and water scarcity, which already affects 40% of the population, are challenges to which it is necessary to respond as soon as possible.In 2022, and during the next few years, the utilities will continue to optimize their management, thanks, in part, to these technological trends.
The future depends on digital transformation.Now, this should not be conceived as an end in itself, but as the way of extracting the value of the data and converting information into business intelligence.Only in this way can we face the challenges of the next decades, concludes Idrica.