Water & Wastewater Asia January/February 2023

scarcity, droughts and floods, and industry
problems like non-revenue water (NRW)
have posed various challenges to the
water industry. Different regions may face
different intensities of the same problem.
“Depending on where you are, you might
not have enough water, you might have too
much water, or the water you have might
not be clean. You may be taking water from
a source that might not be there in five
years,” clarified Herrin.
Addressing these challenges is at the top
of everyone’s minds, but to Herrin, there
is a bigger problem at hand: “I think the
biggest problem, overall, is unpredictability
— not knowing what might happen, and
then trying to prepare for the worst case.”
And this unpredictability extends to water
infrastructure as well. Leakages, cracks,
NRW, among other problems, might occur
without notice.
That is where OpenFlows technology, with
its capabilities of assessing an asset’s
lifecycle, might come into play. Herrin
explained that with OpenFlows and other
software solutions by Bentley, users
can anticipate and identify where the
likely problems are, and understand the
magnitude of the problem. Users can also
plan around how to create district metered
areas to help control the flow of water better
through the city, and then manage the
pressures better. And once the engineers
finish analysing the problems, managers
or operators can take that information,
visualise it in laymen terms, and explain
to decision-makers clearly where that
particular problem in the infrastructure lies.
This, Herrin explained, can help companies
to get better funding to solve the problem,
or to put bigger plans in place, such as a
water conservation programme.
“We have gotten better today at predicting
better what might happen in the future,”
declared Herrin. “If we are looking at
something like water scarcity, for example,
if we understand what the city is likely
to look in 10-20 years, we can look at
the plans and understand what we can
do with the people to try to adjust their
behaviour. For instance, what happens
if we can get individuals to reduce their
water consumption by 10%? Get industries
to reuse and recycle more water, instead
of just taking freshwater? We can help
evaluate these what-if scenarios to
help understand which can make a big
difference, and which cannot.”
ADVANCING INFRASTRUCTURE AND
SUSTAINABILITY
This predictive maintenance, in turn, can
help utilities and infrastructures to improve
sustainability measures. According to
Herrin, sustainability comes back to
ensuring that water utilities do what they
need to do — be it a water distribution
utility ensuring potable water, or a
wastewater utility collecting and treating
wastewater effectively. But each utility
doing their job may not be enough. Digital
twinning, such as OpenFlows solutions,
would therefore be at the centre of this
communication, connecting different
utilities.
OpenFlows technology
can cover the entire
lifecycle of an asset,
predicting where
likely problems
might appear in it
“Any individual utility might think it is
doing okay, but the bigger picture is still
changing in a way that is not sustainable,”
said Herrin. “With Bentley, we see the
connection of the different professionals
that are responsible for infrastructure
as being very important, when these
professionals communicate with each
other — whether it is a water utility and
a power utility working together to figure
out, for example, if there is a better time for
the electric grid [to function], or the water
utility to pump its water. Or if there is a
more efficient way of doing things that will
reduce the carbon footprint of the entire
city.”
Ultimately, even though Bentley sees
themselves as a software provider they
hope to help the entire ecosystem of the
water industry by advancing successful
infrastructure. In doing so, they can
advance successful communication,
connection, and sustainability too.
Herrin concluded: “We are seeing a lot
of changes where utilities are looking for
better ways to improve their operations,
and we know that there is so much value in
the planning and design that can improve
through construction and operations.
As such, we see ourselves helping the
industry take advantage of connecting
the dots between those different lifecycle
phases.”
Gregg Herrin, vice-president of water infrastructure
division in Bentley Systems
20 WATER & WASTEWATER ASIA | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023