Nashville’s city government has a deep-rooted history in the water industry, providing drinking water to its citizens since the early 1800s. Today, Nashville Metro Water Services (MWS), Tennessee, serves more than 191,000 customers in Nashville and surrounding counties.
The utility operates a complex water distribution system with over 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) of water mains. It manages two water treatment plants, processing 90 million gallons (34,000 cubic meters) of water per day, and 56 water pumping stations.
Challenge
Nashville needs to serve an increasing number of customers each year, who are drawn to the city’s century-old music traditions and stellar universities. Quality service and operational efficiency are critical to cater for these new customers.
It was challenging to identify the consistent root cause of issues regarding water quality complaints, leaks or pressure, given that each MWS team used different data sets (e.g., modelling for engineers, SCADA for operations, CMMS for maintenance). This in turn extended the length of time MWS took to troubleshoot these problems.
Solution
MWS partnered with Xylem Vue to develop a digital twin. This was implemented to provide a real-time decision support system for Nashville’s drinking water network. This application optimizes operations by providing greater visibility into existing systems. Most importantly, it empowers MWS’ engineers and operators to make better, quicker, more informed decisions, as everyone is working on the same page.
This is accomplished by integrating multiple data sources to enable MWS staff to manage and correct drinking water distribution in real time, with a clear understanding of water age, pressure, and source within every node of the network.
Outcomes
The network digital twin helps MWS visualize operating conditions to uncover critical insights and realize transformative outcomes, even in areas where there are no sensors. The application’s advanced hydraulic modelling, coupled with machine learning, enables the utility to deliver safe, high-quality drinking water to its community.
The utility can now quickly detect anomalies within its distribution network and take proactive measures to prevent system disruption and customer complaints. For example, Xylem Vue helped MWS detect that the water age in a particular tank was significantly higher than expected, exceeding 200 hours and trending upward. Collectively, MWS staff decided to reduce the tank fill lower limit by just three feet (about one meter) and used real-time data to confirm that the water age had decreased to a range between 100 and 115 hours before stabilizing.
The Xylem Vue platform helps MWS deliver high-quality service to the community and increase its operational efficiency.