Today, 25-50 per cent of all distributed water globally is lost or never invoiced due to illegal connections, inaccurate billing systems, inaccurate metering, leakages, deteriorating infrastructure and lack of pressure management etc. This is known as Non-Revenue Water (NRW). To meet the future demand for water and increase the financial viability of water utilities, reducing Non-Revenue Water is needed.

In the city of Odense, VCS Denmark has been supplying the city with clean drinking water since 1853. VCS Denmark operates seven waterworks, eight wastewater treatment plants and 3,400 km of pipeline networks. Since 1993, VCS Denmark have carried out a district zoning of the pipeline network. The branch network is now operated with 63 DMAs, supervised by the SCADA system, covering more than 95 per cent of the supply network. This enables optimal operation and leakage detection. Every five minutes, the SCADA supervised network calculates the optimal pressure and flow, based on data from online values in the DMAs and five booster stations. In addition, a pipe rehabilitation program has been performed over a 10-year period, reducing burst frequency by 50 per cent.

Today, low leakage levels and a secure water distribution is performed. In 2019, VCS Denmark obtained a NRW level of 5.3 per cent, water losses of 1.22 m3/km/day and ILI at 0.60.