What if we pioneered a Citywide Water Digital Twin in Singapore?
Written by Ismail Weiliang and Jamie Radford , a Chartered Civil Engineer experience in assessing the benefits of asset management and digital transformation
ISMAIL WEILIANG
The Waterbender
Civil Engineer
JAMIE RADFORD
Co-author
Chartered Civil Engineer
Views are entirely ours
and not connected to any company
What is a Digital Twin?
The term 'digital twin' is being increasingly used across the global infrastructure sector with the great potential for digital twins to enhance social outcomes. A digital twin not just a digital representation of a physical asset, process, or system. It connects with its physical counterpart to optimise value throughout the lifecycle. This connection to physical world is critical and requires a flood of data on what is occurring in our ever-changing world. With data analysis and machine learning, one obtains insights to support decision making for interventions on the physical asset, delivering better outcomes.
Water Digital Twin Examples in Singapore
For Water Reclamation Plants (WRP), Singapore has Smart Plants with process digital twins such as the Whole Plant Simulation platform at Changi Water Reclamation Plant. It replicates systems and streams and gives predictions 5 days ahead, alerting operators on anomalies and recommending smart decisions.
For Water Supply Plants (WSP), Singapore also has a process digital twin currently in trial, shifting response-based operation to predictive-based operation. This simulations do not disrupt actual operations, and the process digital twin collects near real-time data.
For Water Supply Networks (WSN), Singapore has a digital twin - the Smart Water Grid "WaterWiSe” – 476 sensor stations island wide tracking near real-time data. Through real-time asset monitoring (pressure and water quality), predictive maintenance and interventions of assets are done. Singapore also has the Smart Meter Network which can predict water demand. From 2021 - 2023, 300,000 smart water meters will be installed in homes, commercial buildings and industrial sites. And in 2025Singapore is planning to integrate both Smart Water Grid and Smart Water Meter Network to create virtual district meter areas for better leak detection.
For Water Reclamation Networks (WRN), Singapore has a Smart Sewer Grid with sewer analytics and management system. With an extensive manhole water level monitoring system in about 600 manholes, it monitors fat, oil, and grease (FOG) from eating establishments and also discharge of sediments and cement wastes from developments.
For Catchment & Waterways (C&W), Singapore has the Smart Drainage Grid – a hydrometric network with >260 water level and >80 flow IoT sensors, NEA rain gauges and an array of CCTVs along waterways. From the data points, flood warnings are issued for public and staff mobilisation for flood mitigation measures. However, the smart drainage grid can be optimised further as a digital twin for flood forecasting with hydraulic models.
Accelerating Digital Transformation
Building on the success of Mott MacDonald's Smart Infrastructure Index and Project13, the Augmented Delivery Index helps assess maturity and accelerate digital transformation in major programme delivery. Singapore can see how organisations or projects compares here.
Authors:
Jamie Radford is Head of Strategic Development Moata at Mott MacDonald Singapore. He is a Project manager and chartered civil engineer with experience applying BIM o major design and build projects and assessing the benefits of asset management and digital transformation. Varied experience includes helping infrastructure owners drive digital transformation, developing business cases for smart asset management and effective information management and leading the development of the Project 13 digital maturity assessment.
Ismail Weiliang is a civil engineer at Mott MacDonald Singapore. He holds a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering with a Civil Infrastructure Minor from National University of Singapore. He works on local and oversea flood management projects. He supports digital transformation and the proposal development and deployment of digital twin solutions for East Asia's water sector.
References:
https://www.pub.gov.sg/Documents/Digitalising-Water-Sharing-Singapores-Experience.pdf
LET'S CONNECT!