San Diego's water planning to be enhanced by expert services from DNV

The City of San Diego has awarded a multi-million, five-year consulting contract to DNV, which provides the Synergi Water hydraulic modeling software solution for improvement of water quality and reduction of leaks.

3000 miles of pipeline

San Diego has one of the most complex water systems in the United States, in an area where years of drought have increased demand for technological advances to minimize leaks, maximize reliability of services and meet California’s requirements for annual and continuous reduction in water use.

DNV’s consultants along with Synergi Water software provide engineers and water system operators in the Public Utilities Department of San Diego with powerful tools for the maintenance of more than 3000 miles of transmission and distribution pipelines and 136 pressure zones to serve nearly 1.4 million customers within more than 400 square miles of mountainous and coastal terrain. Synergi Water is working to assist them to more efficiently and accurately model this system using detailed hydraulic and geographic information. The solution supports pressure management, leak reduction and reliable water utility service that protects the health of communities and the environment.

Smart solutions for water utilities

The City of San Diego has been a leader in real-time hydraulic analysis for two decades. “The award of this long-term contract underscores the existing working relationship and trust we have with the City of San Diego,” says Deborah Wood, Regional Manager for Americas, Digital Solutions at DNV, “We are proud to deliver to a utility department that is at the forefront of the industry, and one that uses business intelligence and performance metrics to drive efficiencies in water consumption and water conservation,” she says.

“Our vision is to be a world class utility with a world class model,” says Rick Stevens, Senior Civil Engineer in the Water Planning Section at the Public Utilities Department in San Diego, which is steadily creating a more advanced model of the system. DNV consulting services provide specialized technical support in areas such as water model calibration, training of engineers and operators, surge studies, creating online water quality analysis and pump station energy calculations.

Pushing the Synergi Water model forward

With Synergi Water, engineers can perform fast and accurate analyses on extremely large systems, which can contain hundreds of thousands of components, (pipes, valves, pumps and tanks.) They can model complex control arrangements in nearly any operational scenario. Going forward, automated data collection combined with data analytics in Synergi Water will be the basis of even larger efficiency gains. “We are pushing the model forward so that we can continue doing more with less. The future of hydraulic modelling is all about developing accuracy and precision to simulate real world conditions.  That will open up a whole world of efficient system planning, design and management.” says Stevens.