Authority To Automate Valve Operations To Curb Waters Disruptions

The Water Authority of Fiji plans to automate the operations for eight critical valves to help curb disruptions of water supply along the Suva-Nausori corridor.

Minister for Infrastructure Jone Usamate said the automation would solve one of WAF’s daily operations which involves manually operating the valves.

Instead when the automation is complete the valves will operate with the push of a button.

“An automated system will be more efficient and shall reduce the number of water disruptions caused by pressure fluctuations in the pipe during and after valve operations,” Mr Usamate said.

WAF is also looking at automating data on their Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.

This will provide them with an edge to have a proactive approach in scheduling plant protective maintenances to avoid unplanned shutdowns and disruptions in service.

It will allow the authority to plan water distribution using real-time data in required areas during times of disaster.

Currently, Mr Usamate said the manual systems limit WAF’s ability to monitor real-time data and evaluate their whole operations.

He highlighted that 21 water systems were affected nationwide during Tropical Cyclone Yasa and Ana and thousands of customers were without water supply.

For the past three months, Suva has experienced 263 water main disruptions while there were 159 water main disruptions in Labasa.

Furthermore, WAF experienced 467 unplanned water disruptions and three planned water disruptions in Suva last year.

The Labasa urban region experienced 451 unplanned disruptions and 10 planned disruptions.

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