Toulouse. Sensors, probes, remote readings: how is the safeguarding of drinking water orchestrated?
By Quentin Marais
Published on
In the premises of COMET, on the hillsides of Pech-David, Robert Medina, vice-president of Toulouse Métropole in charge of water management, wanted to reassuring when talking about drinking water in France’s fourth largest city. But to avoid any shortage, the consequences of which could be dramatic, several levers are deployed.
The COMET in control tower
All the action takes place at COMET, the piloting and hypervision center of the drinking water service, applied in October 2021. “It gives a 360-degree view of all drinking water service activities,” explains Julien Fourat, director of governance and project within SETOM, which is none other than Veolia’s dedicated company for the management of drinking water in metropolitan France. This company operates the service under the name “eau de Toulouse Métropole”. This COMET, “it is a will of Toulouse Métropole”, indicates, for his part, Robert Medina. “The contract started on 1uh January 2020, and it is to last 12 years. » The dice are thrown.
Sensors, probes, fire hydrants…
How to deploy the strategy to preserve drinking water? First of all, there are sensors, distributed on the territory of Toulouse Métropole. “There are 1,600 who will listen to the noise on the networks to detect leaks, says Florian Nospelle, technical network manager. To this we will add 300 new sensors new generation which will listen to leaks directly in the water network”, this same network which represents no less than 3300 kilometers.
Julien Fourat goes on to talk about the “80 multi-parameter probes deployed at strategic points in the network and allow, continuously, to know and guarantee the quality of the water”.
Finally, 10% of fire hydrants, i.e. 700 out of the 7,000 present in and around the Pink City, are equipped “so that you can see when the pole is being misused. It happens that people smoke this water, and we can believe that it is a leak. This allows us to monitor the entire park statistically”.
Remote reading, “an ambitious program”
In addition to the sensors and equipment installed on the fire hydrants, SETOM and Toulouse Métropole are also working to be closer to the inhabitants. ” We deploy remote reading, which allows us to monitor consumption on drinking water meters. Every day, we see the information and we will be able to calculate the yields which normally take place at the end of the year”, reveals Florian Nospelle.
“If there is a leak, it comes to us as information here, at COMET, and we can report it directly to the citizen, for a much faster response“adds Robert Medina.
“Remote reading is an ambitious program, 190,000 meters will be renewed throughout the Metropolis by the end of 2024. We are currently being deployed. This will make it possible to make the consumer an actor in the preservation of resource, with the possibility of connecting every day, to see its consumption, and also, for the subscriber, to define an alarm which is triggered and informs him of a threshold overrun.”
Yield and Renewal
Objectives have already been set by Toulouse Métropole, in particular to limit leaks as much as possible. The yield is, in the territory, ” 86%. We started at 84, and we set a target of 88 by 2024, hence the interest of sensors and rapid interventions on leaks”, figure Robert Médina. “In Occitania, the yield is 74%. As for the water network, being “fairly young”, it is being renewed “twice as much as what was planned in previous years. By the way from 0.4 to 0.8% renewalper year, of the network”, continues the elected official.
“Always be one step ahead”
Six people work daily at COMET, with 24-hour surveillance. The space is divided into four parts: safety and security, facility management, scheduling, and finally hypervisor. It is in this last sector thatwork Germain Aubert: “The objective will be to multiply, monitor and contextualize at the same time. At the end, the water should reach the tap. We work with our teams closer to the subscriber.
Solid equipment to meet the challenge of global warming, “which is getting worse. The best answer is to raise awareness and, in terms of technology, always be one step ahead“, judge Julien Fourat.
And Robert Médina concludes: “we want to go towards more exemplary in water management, not only water management quantities, but also of quality. Toulouse Métropole is fully aware of the need to move towards total preservation of drinking water”.
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