Meters and tele-reading
The meter is a mechanism which registers the consumption of drinking water in residences and serves a base for the invoicing of the service rendered. Its maintenance and conservation is carried out by the company and therefore any charge incurred for repair work or replacement is covered by the water bill.
The reliability of the meter is fundamental to correctly register water consumed at an individual level and also all of the provision. For this reason there are three main rules: no broken meters, no meter older than 10 years via a permanent renovation plan and all meters that we install are of metrological class C.
The quality of the reading depends on whether the meter can be read. There is an important part of meters inside a residence that cannot be read if the resident is not at home at the time of the meter reading. To improve the quality of the reading Aguas de Sagunt is a pioneer in the installation of meters equipped with radiofrequency models which allows us to read the meter without actually having to access the gauge, thus adapting the quotas that are perceived as maintenance and conservation of the meter.
The services that we provide are always invoiced from our offices and paid via direct debit in our offices. They are never charged at a client’s house.
What is the tele-reading?
This is the system via which Aigües de Sagunt can find out the amount of drinking water consumed with a high level of precision and minimum disturbance. The installation of a remote control and distance reading allows for better management of the installations. We dispose of Remote Control and Distance Control systems in the areas that we manage, this allowing us to:
- Know about the variables which inform us about the state of the network (flow, pressure, free chlorine concentration etc), provided by the adequate instrumentation to guarantee its reliability.
- Know about the state of the functioning of the elements and integrated equipment inside drinking water production centres and pumping stations.
- Modify instructions of elements which work automatically
- Manoeuvre certain elements which are operated in the network at distance.
This is currently managed via an ensemble of 348 remote stations, managing 6.100 measuring instruments, 12.000 states and alarms, 2.500 Orders and 24 remote control installations, which allow us to carry out manoeuvres on 200 valves, 400 pump motors, from the control centres which are strategically located in delegations and plants.
Data collected in real time from each of the remote stations arrives at the master stations and are managed in the Control Centres via control and acquisition of data systems and centralized via a secure environment via the latest ICT tools and systems which allow for bidirectional links via the internet with WEB publications which guarantee the maximum security, reliability and flexibility in the remote monitoring of the installations.
As well as the management of the remote control systems via a System of control and acquisition of data, the obtained information is analyzed, stored and classified so that it can later be:
- Used to generate statistical reports
- Analysed in the case of problems to the service
- Used to produce and update mathematical models of the drinking water distribution networks
- Carrying out maintenance work
- Assuring the quality and continuous improvement of process management.
The remote control of the supply system is based on the latest machines or PLCs which have demonstrated reliability in the industrial sector, linked with the master stations via private radio networks, telephonic records, mobile phones (GPRS y GSM), Ethernet networks and fibre optic networks. In the most strategic points of the supply network equipment redundancy and communication channels are incorporated, increasing the reliability and robustness of the functioning.