Leveraging water infrastructure asset management for energy recovery and leakage reduction

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between the awareness of potential for energy recovery within Municipal Water Distribution Systems and the lack of knowledge of the extent and location of such potential so as to increase the sustainability and resilience of South African cities. This is done by leveraging asset management data, contained within municipal infrastructure asset registers and asset management plans, to identify energy recovery and leakage reduction potential. Data from asset registers and customer profiling within the municipal asset management plans were used to develop a hydraulic model for a municipal water distribution system. The customer service charter within the asset management plans describes the level of service, which was used in evaluating minimum operating pressures within the system. Comparing this to a pressure profile from the hydraulic analysis of the model, identifies excess pressure areas, exploitable for energy recovery. The novelty of this research is the exploitation of asset management data from Infrastructure Asset Management Plans and Asset Registers for the development of a hydraulic model to analyse energy recovery and leakage potential within a municipal water distribution system. Asset management data were used to identify an average annual preliminary energy recovery potential within the Polokwane Central District Metered Area of 2.3 GWh, resulting in an average annual leakage reduction potential between 3.3% and 4.2% of potable water, adding to the asset management value chain.