Among multiple speakers Ole Skytte, one of the Leakman partners, did a presentation at the The 8th Global Leakage Summit 2016 in September.
Ole Skytte is the Distribution System Manager at HOFOR – a Danish water utility – who has conducted an exclusive speaker interview with the Global leakage team, highlighting how HOFOR managed to reduce leakage to a world record level.
Read an excerpt from the interview here:
Q. Copenhagen has ‘a unique story’ to tell – it has just been named as one of the top three cities in Europe for sustainable water management. In what ways did HOFOR – as the water provider – contribute to this achievement?
“There are three important factors concerning sustainable water management: The resilience of the water system, the efficiency of the water use, the quality of its water. All three factors have high priority in Copenhagen and will be explained during my presentation of the Global Leakage Summit.”
Q. HOFOR has one of the lowest daily rates of customer water consumption in the world – 100 litres per person per day (UK is 140 l/p/d). What conservation measures and customer incentives did you put in place to achieve this?
“Since 1987 HOFOR has been focusing on water consumptions with many different activities such as:
- Campaigns including: using less water, stories about installation of new toilets and business cases, campaigns concerning the use of rainwater in gardens
- Installation off meters for every house connection on the public system
- Information and campaigns for saving ground water resources by using other water resource
- Using toilets with low water volume and dual flush
So from 1988 to now, we have reduced the water consumption from 170 L per day to just about 100 L per day per person.”
Q. Do customers play a part in reducing non-revenue water (NRW), for example by identifying leaks and illegal connections? How significant are commercial losses (meter under-registration and theft) as a proportion of total volume water loss?
“In general our customers do not play a role in reducing non-revenue water but on the other hand, we have wide use of the social media, where our customers are very good at sharing information on leaks etc. All the employees in HOFOR play a part in reducing non-revenue water and will inform the right people, if they see an illegal connection or leak. This is one of the fantastic observations I have made in my time in HOFOR – all
employees are very proud of our company and will therefore always participate actively
in making HOFOR a better and more effective company. I would say 1-2 % but we don’t measure it.”