SweetSense improve water supply in developing countries with Pressac’s energy monitoring sensors

Background

SweetSense develops and deploys technologies to manage water and energy services in remote, off-grid environments.

Its mission is to improve transparency, accountability, and the cost-effectiveness of remote water, energy, and infrastructure projects to improve community health and quality of life.

Sweetsense innovative technology monitors the daily water supplies of over three million people in East Africa, helping to reduce humanitarian drought emergencies.

The challenge

Today, two billion people live with chronic high water stress, and four billion experience water stress at least one month a year. One-third of agricultural soils globally are degraded, and two billion people face food insecurity. Climate change is intensifying social and economic stress globally.

While strategies to improve water access have been in place for some time, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) found that as many as 50% of their pumps were unusable at any given time due to breakage – and they’re often unaware of the issue for weeks or months. This has a significant impact on community health and agriculture.

The solution

Pressac’s Current Sensor: One channel

SweetSense is partnered with The Water Project in Western Kenya to install sensors on rural handpumps and create a financially sustainable service delivery model.

To remotely monitor groundwater pump usage and detect faults, SweetSense needed to create a low-cost, field-deployable, near-time monitoring solution.

SweetSense searched for manufacturers of low-powered, wireless current monitoring sensors and found Pressac.

Our wireless sensors are self-powered using ultra-low energy from the measured conductor, so there’s no need for power or batteries. They simply clip around the electricity cable and measure the energy (AC) consumption, so there’s no interruption to the electrical supply. And, they have no recurring fees, so you pay a fixed price per sensor, with no additional data costs.

An off-grid, solar-powered gateway transmits the sensor data, via satellite connectivity, to SweetSense’s cloud-based data analytics platform. The data allows for more proactive water management and early intervention where necessary.

The results

With Pressac’s smart sensor technology installed, ground pumps across water-insecure communities can now be monitored remotely, in near real-time.

Sensors data alerts project partners of water-point usage and performance and provides critical data that can underpin strategies to improve water availability.

This insight empowers communities – if they can measure it, they can better manage it.

Project partners are notified when a water point fails so it can be repaired immediately — instead of weeks or months later.

The data is combined with secondary data sources, such as average rainfall and water table levels, to better understand how social, economic, and seasonal changes influence the system’s quality. And data is analysed to optimise the performance of the particular interventions.

“The future success of these sustainability plans hinges on being able to track and report groundwater use in near real-time. With the addition of Pressac’s current monitoring sensors, we can bridge the critical trust and transparency gaps, making it possible to build robust, scalable and cost-efficient solutions for managing precious groundwater suppliers anywhere in the world. By remotely monitoring groundwater using smart sensors, we’re able to help improve and maintain sustainable access to water supplies for people, farmers, and livestock.” Matthew Tolbirt, Chief Business Officer, SweetSense

Want to learn more?

Read more about Sweetsense’s innovative solutions, visit sweetsensors.com

Find out more about Pressac’s wireless current monitoring sensors