SHAH ALAM, 5 Dec: A total of 66 million litres per day (MLD) of non-revenue water (NRW) can be saved in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya by September 2016.
The Selangor Water Supply Company (Syabas) Executive Director of Projects and NRW, Yusof Badawi said that this can be achieved through the use of a new technology, Smartball, which will be inserted into the pipeline to check for any leaks.
He said that in two years (Sept 2014-Sept2016) 2,400 kilometres of the pipeline can be examined, thus reducing the rate of NRW which has now reached 1,549 MLD for the period from last January to October.
“The rate of NRW now stands at 33.80 percent and the use of this system is expected to reduce NRW to 30.75 percent.
“66 MLD is equivalent to 15 times the capacity of the Wangsa Maju water treatment plant,” he said, quoted from Bernama.
According to Yusof, Syabas has been testing the system since February 2013 and it has proved to be efficient in detecting leaks in pipelines.
Until last November, 500km of the pipeline was inspected using this system and 250 leaks were detected, this saving 13.9 MLD of treated water.
Yusof said that through this method, the 300 millimetre ball filled with batteries, electronic components and instruments will move using the flow of water and send detailed information on the situation of any leaks along the pipeline.
“Each time it passes through a leaky channel, this system will produce a sound and it can detect leaks as small as 0.1 litres per minute,” he explained.
He added that the system is suitable to be used along the 6,000 km pipeline in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.
NS
