IN DETAIL

Our goal is to deliver a sub-100 euro solution for monitoring cold/hot water consumption in residential settings, which will be easy to install from non-experts, battery-less, require limited maintenance, and accurately monitor all types and points of water consumption activity. It will deliver high granularity temporal and spatial measurements of water consumption, well beyond the capabilities of existing systems. The infrastructure will be compatible with current open smart metering systems, to enable integration in smart grids/houses and metering infrastructures from utility providers. Further, data will be available through open standards to enable integration and value added services.

We will research and develop analysis and recommendation services for water measurements established from real-time water consumption data. The services will automatically handle all data collection, management and knowledge extraction duties. They will analyze water consumption data for various residential and consumer dimensions, identify behavioral patterns, and provide personalized recommendations. The services will provide open interfaces enabling knowledge extraction and integration in third systems. Further, the developed software will be able to operate both in consumer hardware (e.g. desktop pc) and a cloud infrastructure, offering flexibility in installation and service provision.

 We will research and develop efficient, scalable knowledge management services for big data originating from massive, real-time water consumption measurements. Data management, knowledge extraction and analysis services will be cloud-based, entailing the complete lifecycle of data. The developed software will be a turn-key solution enabling stakeholders to efficiently store and manage water consumption data, perform analysis, identify patterns, estimate projections, and visualize information. Open interfaces will be provided to enable integration with third-party systems. Further, integration with social networks will provide automatic publishing of aggregated consumption results. Finally, the software will be targeted to consumer groups of non-expert users (e.g. neighborhoods, grassroots initiatives, NGOs) that voluntarily wish to participate in efficient water management practices.

 We will specialize and extend the previous software to address the specific needs of water stakeholders regarding the exploration, design and validation of Water Demand Management strategies. We will develop facilities enabling the integration and management of highly granular water consumption data, along with other relevant detailed data sources (e.g. demographics, GIS, weather data). Further, we will research and develop analysis services offering expert users the capability to explore the hidden correlations of the parameters that shape water demand strategies and water pricing. A what-if analysis framework for water management strategies will be developed, supporting novel and non-traditional pricing schemes. The services will extend beyond typical planning and projections, offering targeted testing of various scenarios for specific populations. The operator will be able to design a novel pricing strategy, inform the consumers, roll-out the new policy, and continuously assess its impact. This interactivity, based on two-way communication among consumers and resource providers, is novel in water management. Further, the operator will be able to optimize the usage of the existing infrastructure capacity (i.e. rather use the existing pipe system more efficiently than extending it) and also receive valuable information concerning the location of leakages in the water pipes (i.e. difference between quantity fed into the pipes and the quantity consumed by specific users).

 Extracting knowledge from water consumption data is inadequate, if not delivered to consumers through appropriate, engaging and easy to comprehend interfaces and stimuli. Our goal is to deliver knowledge in a way that can incur and sustain changes in water consumption. We will focus our efforts in two areas. First, we will research and develop multimodal visualization services for water consumption data, analysis, and recommendations. We will experiment with various representations, capabilities, and user interfaces, in order to accommodate the cognitive capacity and limited attention span of every day consumers. These interfaces will also be interactive and multimodal, offering simple what-if analysis concerning changes in consumption, and will be available through the Web and mobile devices. The second area concerns the development of non-intrusive, in situ feedback instruments to inform consumers and induce changes in consumption behavior, such as led displays in faucets, sound alerts when exceeding a consumption threshold, and affective displays rewarding sensible consumer behavior.