Creating award-winning IoT innovation to solve water leakage in Turkey

Turkey’s capital and second-largest city, Ankara is experiencing huge water-stress due to a combination of factors. Reservoir levels drop around 10% in dry season, with rising temperatures caused by global warming exacerbating this trend and adversely affecting the supply of drinking water to citizens. This is compounded by endemic water leakage owing to ageing infrastructure and inefficient methods of leak detection.

ASKI, the General Directorate of Ankara Water and Sewerage Administration, is the city’s water utility, responsible for providing water and wastewater services to six million people. The organisation is focused on maximising water supply to consumers and minimising leakage in a smart, cost-effective and low-carbon way.

The customer appointed Enzen to create and implement a solution that would address this challenge, improve the sustainability of Ankara’s water network and help transition its organisation to a decarbonised, digitalised future.

In collaboration with Enzen group company Enertest and with funding from the British Embassy in Turkey, Enzen knowledge practitioners designed a leak detection solution tailored to the utility’s network.

Taking into account the age and condition of the infrastructure, Enzen deployed narrowband IoT (Internet of Things) acoustic sensors to monitor remotely for leak noises. Taking place over a two-week period, this pilot project focused on a specific district of the network where it was estimated as much as 35% of water leaked.

The subsequent data was transferred to cloud-based asset management software which pinpointed the exact location of the leaks, enabling ASKI to take more effective remedial action and reduce water losses significantly.

Enzen’s solution proved to be a safer, quicker and more affordable method of establishing accurate visibility and ongoing monitoring of the utility’s assets. After completion of the pilot, it was estimated that in the trial area:

• 80% of the physical losses were saved
• 70.000 m3/year of water would be saved every year
• 19 tonnes of carbon emissions would be reduced by avoiding more expensive, time-consuming methods of inspection and treatment.

At Trenchless Balkans, an annual international conference which recognises excellence in utilities asset management, the solution was honoured with the ‘Water Loss Control – New Project’ award.

It will now be introduced to Turkey’s wider water network, increasing the availability of clean water to millions of consumers and supporting the country’s water suppliers on their journey to become high-performing, sustainable digital utilities of the future.