ESPH, a Costa Rican water utility, replaced manual checking with continuous pressure monitoring across 27 locations. Alerts from remote telemetry units accelerate leak detection, cutting treated water losses and improving customer service.
Heredia Public Service Enterprise (ESPH)
A private water utility through public concession in Heredia Province, Costa Rica, ESPH serves 50,000 users and delivers 15.5m m³ of water per year, the average use per family being 1,000 litres per day.
The situation
Heredia Public Service Enterprise (ESPH), a water utility in Heredia, Costa Rica, found that monitoring for leaks in their water distribution network required considerable manual effort. Crews had to be sent to measure the pressure at 27 different locations, covering a wide geographic area. Given the time taken to perform this task, a leak could easily have been present for some time, causing the loss of expensive, treated water for ESPH as well as inconvenience to their customers.
ESPH therefore needed to minimise the manual effort required to monitor for, and dramatically reduce, the time to detect leaks. Systems Integrator Soluciones en Automatizacion Industrial S.A. (SOATI), an automation solutions provider, offered a solution from AU2MATION based on the Grundfos Telemetry IoT/4G unit.
The solution
The Grundfos Telemetry IoT/4G unit, battery-powered and including a built-in cellular modem, was deployed at each of the 27 locations previously monitored manually. It monitors a pressure sensor at each site, continuously recording data so ESPH can view a historic record at any time to identify particular behaviours.
The telemetry unit communicates with ESPH’s SCADA system over a private gateway on the public cellular network, using the open standard DNP3 protocol. It sends an alarm to ESPH on detection of a low-pressure event, signifying a potential leak.
Three additional alarm levels are available should ESPH wish to monitor other conditions. The unit also monitors its own battery voltage and can generate an alarm in the case of low battery, allowing time for ESPH to visit the site to replace the battery. Battery replacement is a simple task, performed on site in a few minutes.
Grundfos Telemetry IoT/4G is a self-contained datalogger / remote telemetry unit with:
- Internal battery pack
- IP68 unit enclosure
- Either an IoT (NB-IoT/ CaT-M1) or 4G (with 3G/2G fallback) modem
- Auto-switching internal and external antenna options
- Software configurable AI, CI, DI, Modbus and SDI-12 communication options
- Integrated submersion sensor
- Local diagnostic points
- Intelligent alarm reporting
It communicates with the Grundfos Connect Sensor Platform, DNP3/ WITS DNP3 Masters, or FTPS servers.
Key benefits
Grundfos supplied:
- Grundfos Telemetry IoT/4G units
- SCADA integration
Facts:
- Topic: Leak monitoring and alerting
- Location: Heredia, Costa Rica
- Customer: Heredia Public Service Enterprise (ESPH)
The outcome
ESPH is experiencing the benefits of the solution in terms of reduced effort and a more timely response to leaks in the network, improving their customer service, with historic records of water pressure now available (example below).
Cellular technology avoids the need for aerial mounting and alignment, and battery power removes the need to provide an external power supply for the telemetry unit or pressure sensor.
This project was originally implemented by Metasphere, a company acquired by Grundfos in 2023. The full Metasphere range of remote monitoring products and solutions for water and wastewater networks and environmental applications is now available through Grundfos.
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