Recycled Water End User Control System

Parkes Shire Council

Parks Shire Council is the local government body of the Parkes region, an area in central west New South Wales with a population of approximately 15,000 people. Previously famous for landmarks such as the 'dish' (a giant radio telescope) and the iconic Elvis festival, the Parkes region is also now known for the pioneering Recycled Water Scheme (RWS), Parkes Shire Council and Indicium worked together to create an End User Control System for the management of the recycled water.

Project objectives

The Parkes Shire Council Recycled Water Scheme (RSW) was built in 2020 to provide high-quality recycled water to irrigate open spaces around the Parkes region. The goal of the system was to develop a drought-proof source of municipal irrigation, ensuring that parks and green spaces remained green during times of water scarcity, without drawing on the treated drinking water supply.

As part of this scheme, a system for managing the supply and demand of recycled water to end users of the scheme was required. Traditionally, a number of separate control systems are used to monitor flow, manage control valves, water use billing and demand scheduling. To overcome this siloed approach, Parkes Shire Council decided to explore the use of Internet of Things (IoT) technology and a centralised cloud environment as the means through which to collect and display water consumption data in a more effective manner.

Data needs

In order to effectively manage the supply and demand of water from their RWS, Parkes Shire Council needed to be able to:

Collect real-time data relating to water levels and water flow
Collect data from different sources, including water meters, water storage level sensors and weather stations
Track and manage water consumption easily
Provide access to water consumption data to council administrators as well as end users

Solution design

To fulfil these data needs, Indicium worked with Parkes Shire Council to develop an End User Control System.

The solution involved the installation of a number of different devices:

IoT control devices - used to control meter valves and collect pipeline characteristics such as water flow, water usage and leak detection.
IoT Sensors – devices that provide additional environmental or storage information such as tank levels, and weather observations.

The data from these devices are collected and displayed by the INDICIUM Cloud, an innovative cloud environment that is easily customised according to specific customer requirements.

Critical information is displayed via dashboards making it easy to see information at a glance, and enable real-time interaction with equipment on the ground. Users can manage irrigation schedules and operation rules through a highly intuitive user interface.

Solution benefits

Accurate real-time monitoring of water flows and pipeline performance is easily accessible via the dashboards in INDICIUM Cloud

IoT sensors deployed provide near real-time control by users to mitigate unintended outcomes of adverse events (wind, rain etc).

The user interface provided using the INDICIUM Cloud is user-friendly, customisable, and displays critical data in a central location. This allows users to track and manage water consumption easily

Provides easily accessible, remote viewing of water use in real-time, allowing the Council to:

Set water allocations and irrigation schedules that maximise water use efficiencies
Determine and assess the irrigation needs of end-user sites;
Track sprinkler system performance;
Identify leaks in irrigation reticulation;
Alert users to issues with water quality
Restrict supply, when appropriate, to end-user sites to protect the scheme from excessive demand