New innovation makes Nodava’s organisation more efficient

Nodava (Norra Dalarna Vatten and Avfall) is responsible for the water supply in the municipalities of Mora, Orsa and Älvdalen. We have met Eric Westlund, who has been working for Nodava for more than eight years during which time water meters have one of his principal assignments.

“When I started working here, we had a leak detection form and did all our tasks manually. We visited waterworks, closed valves and searched vast areas to find suspected leaks. It was an inefficient, costly process done by two or three staff members at night,” Eric states. So when we became aware of Kamstrup’s digital water-meter solution four years ago, I was curious to learn how they could challenge our traditional methods.

After purchasing 200 meters from Kamstrup and testing them on a small scale, Nodava quickly saw how the meters could streamline its operations. Today, the company has installed about 3,500 digital water meters from Kamstrup in its water supply network. So far, the meters have helped them find roughly 50 leaks covering both the public water supply and private services.

Nodava has used the new innovations to develop methods that make it easy to detect leaks in the supply network. Kamstrup’s meters listen for sounds that report deviating acoustic patterns in the pipelines. But how is this technology used by the people in the organisation?

“Now, I start every day by analysing the values in Kamstrup’s collection system READy and the analysis tool Leak Detector, which reports deviations in our water supply network. This gives me a good overview of the scope and facilitates our internal allocation of resources,” Eric explains. Finding leaks in real time ensures that our most essential commodity is not lost, while reducing our energy and production costs at the same time.

On 1 June, Eric was tasked with a new assignment at Nodava as Customer Service Officer, which might involve even more responsibility for leak detection within the region. Eric also hopes that he will be able to concentrate even more on analysing data in the future and be a cog in the wheel for making the organisation more proactive.

Leaks both before and after the water meter can be costly for property owners and private individuals. But the new technology enables Nodava to identify and remedy the leaks quickly. And occasionally so quickly that customers never even notice that they have a leak. Eric recounts leak detected in this manner.

“One morning when I opened READy, I saw that a burst pipe was leaking 650 litres of water an hour. As I could tell that the leak was at a household near the office, I went over there myself to look at it. The customer was surprised when I showed up: he had no leaks. But it turned out that the customer had two water-filled rooms in his basement. The washing machine had been leaking water all night long, but as the leak was found quickly, it could be quickly rectified.”

This is one of Eric’s many similar experiences, thanks to the new technology.

“I’m dedicated to ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction. Now we can provide better service to our customers and help them minimise their costs at the same time,” Eric proudly states.

Not only can Nodava improve its service and level of customer satisfaction. The meters also make it possible to reduce water consumption. Or as Eric puts it, “Our most vital commodity”. Today, it is estimated that about 28% of all the water in Mora doesn’t make it all the way out to the tap. But Eric envisions that his strategic work can reduce water loss to below 20%.

“This project is worth its weight in gold. It’s obviously a future-oriented solution which will help us establish a more reliable and durable drinking-water system throughout the region.

• Nodava is responsible for the water supply in the municipalities of Mora, Orsa and Älvdalen
• The project reports to Mora Municipality.
• Mora has 6200 meters, 2300 of which are flowIQ2200 with leak detection, 1300 are MC21 and 2600 are mechanical meters
• READy drive-by and READy Fixed Network
• Leak Detector