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Remote Monitoring of Small Water Enterprises for Sustainable Safe Drinking Water Access and Data Analytics for Predictive Maintenance Authors: Ravindra Sewak, Poonam Sewak, Pooja Singh, Arvind Nagwani Technology Partners: Sankalp Srivastava Field Implementation: Shanker Lal Batra, M. Mallikarjun Organization: Safe Water Network India Abstract Small Water Enterprises (SWEs, or CWPPs1, or Safe Water Stations as known locally) are decentralized, locally managed and operated water treatment systems set up to bring affordable safe drinking water to communities living in quality affected habitations. However, nearly one-third of such SWEs do not sustain because of several deterrents such as unavailability of operating skills, inadequate revenues to cover operational expenses, and absence of timely repairs and maintenance of equipment owing to remote locations. Safe Water Network India has benefited by deploying remote monitoring systems equipped with the Internet of Things (IoT) based sensors for tracking the plants’ technical and sales performance. It helps review performance and augments supervisory capabilities in the plant to ensure 24x7 availability of safe drinking water. The IoT-based monitoring system translates into actionable intelligence and ensures less than 2% downtime in a geographically-dispersed rural water purification project. It also helps automate timely report development and derives meaningful insights for all the stakeholders. This Paper essentially presents a case study of 265 “iJal” Safe Water Stations, managed and operated by entrepreneurs, women self-help groups (SHGs) and community associations. These stations provide reliable yet affordable access to safe drinking water to nearly a million people living in the states of Telangana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The IoT-based parametric monitoring system raises automatic alarms and sends regular alerts which help facilitate both local operations and remote diagnostics conducted by the service entity to identify service and spares requirements on a timely basis. The optimal use of resources in the data collection, storage and analytics efforts make the system ready to be scaled. Context: India is a large country with a population of over 1.36 billion people. Accessibility to piped water in India grew from 21 percent in 2011, covering 40 million households, to 65 percent in 2018, covering 193 million households, driven mainly by rural expansion. With nearly 70 percent of the country’s water being contaminated, the UN reports rank India at 120th position among 122 countries in the water quality index. The “Composite Water Management Index” released by NITI Aayog in June 20182, cites that ~600 million people in India suffer from high to extreme water stress3, about 200 million person-days are lost every year because of inadequate access to safe water4 and it has been argued that about 90 million workdays are lost due to waterborne diseases, costing ₹ 6 billion in production losses and treatment5. To address the widespread fluoride and arsenic contamination in groundwater in the country, the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MoDWS) started a new sub-programme, National Water Quality Sub-Mission (NWQSM) in February 2017 under the flagship National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP). This program will address the urgent need for providing clean drinking water in about 28,000 identified habitations contaminated with Arsenic & Fluoride by March 2021. The total expenditure for the submission is estimated at ₹25,000 crores ($3.5 billion). Similarly, several state, urban, and railway authorities are implementing Small Water Enterprises (SWEs) for serving the needs for drinking water. Therefore, SWEs equipped with IoT based monitoring can provide affordable, reliable and sustainable drinking water solutions to these and other quality affected habitations in the country by efficiently using the investments. The Small Water Enterprise and IoT: SWEs or CWPPs are decentralized, low-cost solutions that provide safe and affordable drinking water to the communities in the quality affected habitations that lack access to safe water, thereby improving the health and economic outcomes by ensuring a 24x7 safe water access. This activity directly contributes towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6.1: universal access to safe water; Goal 5: promoting gender equality through women empowerment, Goal 8: decent work and economic growth and Goal 1: poverty reduction through a reduction in disease

1 Community Water Purification Plants 2Niti Aayog. (June 2018). Composite Water Management Index, accessible at http://niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-Index-Report_vS8-compressed.pdf 3UNICEF and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). (January 2013). Water in India: Situation and Prospects. 4Parikh, J. (2004). Environmentally Sustainable Development in India. Retrieved from http://www.scid.stanford.edu/events/India2004/JParikh.pdf 5D. Mckenzie and Ray (2009: 445). “Urban water supply in India: status, reform options and possible lessons”

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burden. These are set up through investments supported by the Government, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives or philanthropic grants and sometimes, through blended finance. Safe Water Network India facilitates the establishment of an iJal Safe Water Station that is owned and operated by the local entrepreneur, women’s self-help group or community associations. These groups contribute towards the infrastructure support and permit from local government for the operation to set up the purification plant. The equipment is procured through the donor grants and the local operating costs are covered by the revenues generated from daily water sale to the community. These revenues also cover the service technician’s visits, consumables, chemicals, and spares costs. Some part of the surplus revenue is retained as sustainability fund for any high-value repairs, field support or eventual replacement of critical components of the machinery. All stations are mapped geographically through the Remote Monitoring System, such that if there are any alerts, those can be traced when the default dots (Blue,Green, Grey) turn Red.

The groundwater treatment system consists of reverse-osmosis water treatment technology to purify water contaminants such as fluoride, nitrates, and salinity. These systems are provided with a Remote Monitoring System (RMS). This six-stage purification system, consisting of a sand filter, carbon filter, micron filter, reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, ultra violet (UV) and residual chlorination produces quality drinking water in compliance with the relevant national drinking water standards. The technology differs for surface water treatment which typically has different contaminants. Consumers are provided with pre-paid RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) smart cards that can be swiped to dispense 20 liters of treated water in

their own vessels or plastic jerry cans 24x7 through a Water ATM installed at each Safe Water Station. The Remote Monitoring System (RMS) uses sensors and cloud-based data storage technology which enables data visibility every 15 minutes. It helps the service entity monitor plant performance and thus provides visibility to parametric monitoring of SWEs installed across large geographic spread regarding each station’s technical performance and consumer participation. The system also indicates the total dissolved solids (TDS) in the treated water, along with the operations of UV and chlorine dosing. Every morning, local operators ensure the quality of treated water dispensed by conducting the tests for taste, odor, and appearance of the treated water along with its TDS and pH.

Fig 2. Remote Monitoring System ‘AQUANET’

Fig 1. Geographically-mapped iJal Safe Water Stations in India

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A Field Service Entity comprising skilled technicians service the stations and keep a ready inventory of spares which is made available upon payment of a nominal fee. This entity provides timely preventive maintenance and repairs so that reliable safe water access can be served to the communities. This model is designed to generate livelihoods and provide capacity-building throughout the value chain including cluster-level field support service. The oldest station is now nine years old and still provides safe water access reliably and sustainably with less than 2% downtime. The stations can fund their local operations from an affordable user fee of ₹5 for 20 liters of water dispensed.

Safe Water Network along with Mark & Space Telesystems Pvt. Ltd. designed and developed a telemetry-based remote monitoring system (RMS) with embedded electronics. It provides for water plant automation, RFID based customer authentication, and GPRS connectivity to provide cloud-based monitoring of plant performance and sales on a 15-minute frequency. The web platform thus created has the capabilities to operate plant 100% automatically, build central awareness to minimize outages. It permits the creation of sales, quality, and technical reports, which become a much-needed base for insightful data analytics as well as for monitoring and evaluation purposes. It generates and informs 36 dynamic data points every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day which results in close to a million data points daily. In addition, it also communicates the consumer usage data on a real-time basis. Automated alerts, alarms, and reports are also generated and transmitted in a hierarchical manner as per the escalation matrix.

The RMS was selected over the commonly used SCADA systems because of the following reasons: • The upfront investment is significantly lower. It requires lower investment in

computers, software and is easier to train personnel during initial implementation.

• On board memory ensures data storage and transmission despite temporary mobile network failures.

• Installing a remote terminal in relatively hostile environments with unpredictable weather and the power supply is easier due to very low power requirements. A small battery can provide up to six days of back up for monitoring and dispensing despite prolonged power outages.

A typical RMS consists of Clear Polycarbonate Cabinets housing the control panel and the sales panel. It permits Visual Inspection of the internal components. The operators and the technicians use Android-based Tablet Application for operations, adding consumers as well as providing service. The Technician App can also calibrate the sensors if required. The RMS Control Panel is an integrated electronic control panel for monitoring and control of all the parameters for a typical RO Water Treatment Plant. It provides automatic starting & stopping of the RO plant based on pre-configured technical parameters’ acceptable range and water levels in raw and treated water tanks. It provides protection for the safe operation of the plant from over voltage, under voltage, overload, high raw water temperature, raw and treated water TDS, cut off based on raw water availability and HP pumps

and membrane differential pressure faults. It supports continuous monitoring of raw & treated water TDS, pre and post-membrane pressures, raw & treated water tank status, raw water volume, treated water volume, raw water temperature etc. leading to intelligent trending over the life-cycle of the plant. The system also includes Water ATM as well as its smart cards. Thus, the salient features of RMS are wireless data transmission using GSM network, monitor and control the operating status of plant with time stamping, real-time shut down (only applicable in auto mode) and alarm system with respect to input voltage and/or current, monitoring raw & treated water tank levels, reporting the differential pressure across RO Fig 5. RMS Control Panel

Fig 4. Android-based App for Operators & Technicians

Fig 3. RMS Panel

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membranes to trigger preventive maintenance request, and report other deviations from the preset norms. There is a higher consistency of data transmission and the ability to store records locally on the control panel for up to five years. The plant can operate in the auto-mode reducing dependency on the operator, thereby providing smart and easy user experience and flexibility in operations. The RMS was developed over the last decade in four phases. It has passed through four generations of technology development: Year 2010, RMS 1.0: This system only had one control panel, which managed both the technical and sales interface. Year 2011, RMS 2.0: The second phase of development split the sales panel from the control panel for ease of access to the community for their smart card use. Year 2015, RMS 3.0: The third generation of the RMS enabled HTML protocol 2.0 and automatic interface with external water ATMs Year 2017, RMS 4.0: The current fourth generation RMS was enabled both for Wi-Fi and Android App interface with control and sales panels for both operators and technicians separately.

The current phase of development and roll out has helped with more robust data collection and verification process.

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Fig 6. RMS 4.0 Roll Out and Data transmission from the Safe Water Stations

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Following are some of the examples of displays, reports, and dashboards generated in the RMS system to indicate the plant performance.

The following dashboard provides the status of Alarms:

Fig 7. Dashboard showing Alarms from RMS

Fig 7. Operational Analytical Dashboard, displaying different operational characteristics for a particular site.

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The findings from the data provided points to improved equipment safety from Excessive Raw Water Temperature and Currents drawn at different voltages: The raw water and atmospheric temperature analysis were carried out to assess the risk to RO membranes. The peak temperatures of water reached at 30.63° C in summer, far lower than the 45° C limiting temperature. Similarly, during the initial phases of implementation, we had observed a wide fluctuation in the current drawn by the motors at lower voltages, thereby increasing the chance of motor failures. Figure 8. helped us initiate two major changes in the control panel design: (a) auto cut off at given voltages if the plant is in auto mode (b) provide external cut off for voltages beyond 190 – 250 volts using a voltage monitoring relay even if the operator decides to operate the plant in the manual mode. The voltage observed in the rural markets occasionally ranged between 100 – 300 volts, increasing chances of widespread motor and electronics failure. These changes

helped us reduce these failures significantly. The following chart shows that the current drawn by the same system at 120 volts was approximately 19A versus 12.5A at 210 volts thereby increasing the chances of its failure.

Data analytics for decision making and deriving initiative benefits

Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) were installed at some of our Safe Water Stations to optimize power consumption. There was a significant saving of 15-35% power savings due to reduced currents drawn:

Basis for Analysis Records: 7,428,097 Duration: over 8 years

Fig 8. Current Fluctuations in Raw Water vs. Room Temperature

Fig 9. Current drawn at different voltages

Fig 20. Signals received post VFD installation at safe water stations

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Protecting the life of RO membrane

The daily reports highlight the differential pressure between the entry and exit of the membrane pressure tubes. As soon as this differential pressure exceeds the prescribed limits an alarm is raised for preventive maintenance of membranes thereby maintaining continuity of operations and increasing the life of the membranes. An automated daily report with vital operational parameters and respective values of each station is sent out by the server to the pre-configured recipients. Any failure results in immediate loss of sale as well as faith among the consumers. Gaining consumer confidence requires extensive and expensive demand generation and consumer activation activities. This could be avoided by proactively backwashing and cleaning the membranes or changing them before water quality deteriorates. Consumer Participation and Usage Intensity Tracking The RMS captures the details of each transaction for each Safe Water Station with each record being transmitted to the cloud-based server. This data helps track consumer usage intensity and frequency.

Fig 21. Consumer Penetration tracking through Remote Monitoring System

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Volume over the years

The volume growth over years on a Moving Annual Total (MAT) basis for all the 265 safe water stations are depicted in the graph below, showing an annualized volume of approximately 281 million liters.

Fig 22. Moving Annual Total tracking over the years

Conclusion Frequent failures plague rural small water enterprises impacting their uninterrupted and reliable safe drinking water access. However, in a remote location, it is difficult to provide reliable service and operations in the absence of reliable data on what caused a failure. Precious technical resources are wasted in the absence of timely, quality data on the cause of failure or ability to diagnose correctly. This leads to a higher number of visits, adding to cost and time, often due to non-availability of correct spare. In order to get timely, reliable information to the technical team, an automated IoT based telemetry solution through Remote Monitoring System “Aquanet” was deployed, to facilitate scale and ensure reliable and quality water access. Predictive maintenance helps reduce system failures, avoiding high cost or downtime leading to poor quality of water in the interim. The system sends local alerts and alarms to the operator and provides consumers with 24x7 availability of water. Location specific data helps optimize the performance of each station. The use of IoT based RMS helps increase transparency and minimize technical field staff which is a key cost driver for such market-based models in dispersed geographies. Going forward, this shall provide us with a platform for detailed analytics to understand consumer behavior and help drive targeted consumer activation programs. Remote monitoring can help funding organizations see the effective use of their investments. It will help 24x7 dispensing ability as well as ensuring long term savings in maintenance costs at an additional initial investment of 15-20% depending upon the capability of the monitoring system.