Specialized ETL platform for automated water balance and certified calculation of Technical Quality regulatory performance metrics of the integrated water service.
What is the Water Balance Platform?
An enterprise solution designed as a “technical data refinery” to transform raw, heterogeneous, and potentially erroneous readings into structured, certified information. The platform acts as a specialized ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) system for time series, ensuring the robustness required for regulatory reporting.
The Problem We Solve
Water managers face increasing complexities in regulatory reporting and operational leakage management.
Operational Challenges
Fragmented and Inconsistent Data: Periodic direct readings, CSV files from billing systems, real-time SCADA data, and IoT systems with varying protocols make a unified system view complex.
Temporal Asynchrony: Volumetric direct-read meters, non-synchronized zones, and non-simultaneous measurements distort balances and make reliable estimation of water losses complex.
Measurement Errors: Meter resets, anomalies, and data transmission errors require the high time-consuming commitment of specialized personnel engaged in identifying errors and performing their manual correction and verification.
Strict Regulatory Compliance: The need to calculate complex regulatory performance metrics across thousands of kilometers of network under tight deadlines, with audits requiring full traceability.
The GetOpen Solution
The platform implements a complete modeling chain based on certified and reproducible workflows:
1. Ingestion and Fiscal Logging
Multi-source acquisition from IoT endpoints (MQTT, ModBus, OPC-UA), SCADA databases, CSV files, and REST APIs. Storage of the historical series to preserve the original fiscal value with full traceability for audits and verifications.
2. Synchronization and De-accumulation
Transformation of non-equidistant readings into regular time series using conservative interpolation that preserves total volumes. Conversion of cumulative volumes into differential volumes for specific intervals with automated meter reset management.
3. Validation and Anomaly Correction
Multi-level primary validation: Range Check, Delta Check, Rate of Change, Freeze Detection, and Spike Detection. Automated correction cycles using dedicated algorithms for intelligent anomaly management. Every correction is flagged and documented.
4. Certified Regulatory Indicator Calculation
Automated calculation of regulatory performance metrics — including linear leakage (m³/km/day), percentage leakage, and resilience indicators — for individual districts, pressure zones, and the entire water system. Configurable to comply with the specific indicator framework defined by each national regulatory authority.
5. Reporting and Visualization
SCADA-style synoptic dashboards with GIS geographical views, traffic-light status indicators, drill-down capabilities, and interactive time-series charts. Automated, regulation-ready reports with compliant templates for direct upload to institutional portals.
Technology: Delft-FEWS (Water Utility Verticalization)
We utilize the Delft-FEWS framework as a process orchestrator. Thanks to the General Adapter component, the platform is an open system capable of integrating any external calculation script, hydraulic model, or custom algorithm. Zero technological lock-in.
Case Studies
Siciliacque S.p.A. - Large-Scale Bulk Water Supply
Siciliacque manages the 13 main interconnected aqueducts in Sicily, covering over 1700 km of pipelines. Full automation of the water balance, daily delta volume calculation, and consolidation for regulatory reporting. 90% reduction in balance processing time and full compliance with the national regulatory authority requirements.
Acque di Casalotto S.p.A. - Urban Distribution
An integrated Water Management System with automatic daily water balance for both the bulk supply system and the water supply network (DMA). Integration with Progea’s Movicon SCADA software and Engineering’s Net@H2O. Integration with the hydraulic model of the water supply network.
Regulatory Compliance
- National Regulatory Authority Framework: Technical Quality regulation with mandatory regulatory performance indicators for water leakage and service resilience.
- EU Water Framework Directive and national legislation: Mandatory leakage assessment obligations for water service providers above defined thresholds.
- EU Energy Efficiency Directive and national transpositions: Mandatory energy audits for large water utility enterprises.
Technology: Delft-FEWS, PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB, Epanet Sectors: Water Utilities, Irrigation Consortia, ESCos Compliance: National Regulatory Authority Requirements, EU Water Framework Directive, EU Energy Efficiency Directive, National Recovery and Resilience Plans