METHOD FOR THE REAL-TIME ESTIMATION OF THE TOTAL CONSUMPTION OF A FLUID DISTRIBUTED TO USERS, AND A DISTRIBUTION NETWORK IMPLEMENTING SAID METHOD

• US 20150268061A1
• Filed: 10/16/2012
• Published: 09/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Inria, Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement, Irstea- National Research Institute of Science and Technology, Lyonnaise Des Eaux France (Suez Environnement Company), Universite De Bordeaux I, Universite De Bordeaux Segalen
• Original Assignee: Inria, Institut polytechnique de Bordeaux, Irstea- National Research Institute of Science and Technology, Lyonnaise Des Eaux France (Suez Environnement Company), Universite De Bordeaux I, Universite De Bordeaux Segalen
• Inventors: Claudio, Karim, Couallier, Vincent, Legat, Yves, Saracco, Jrme
• Granted Patent: US 9,952,060 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 4/002 Remote reading of utility meters
• CPC Class Codes: G01F 3/00 Measuring the volume flow of fluids or fluent solid material wherein the fluid passes through the meter in successive and more or less isolated quantities, the meter being driven by the flow measuring a proportion of the volume flow G01F5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 90/20 Smart grids as enabling technology in buildings sector smart grids supporting the management or operation of end-user stationary applications in general, or like technologies with no associated climate change mitigation effect Y04S20/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/30 Smart metering, e.g. specially adapted for remote reading

Abstract

A method for the real-time estimation of the total consumption of a fluid, in particular water or gas, distributed from a unit (A) to users (b1, b2 . . . ) via a network of supply pipes (E) with a branch (d1, d2 . . . ), for each user, fitted with a counter (c1, c2 . . . ) of the fluid consumed by the user, which method involves defining cohorts of users having homogeneous behaviour with regard to the consumption of fluid; defining, for at least one of these cohorts, a sample of users from the cohort that is statistically sufficient to represent the cohort; fitting only the branches of the users of each sample with a remote reading device (t1, t2, . . . ) for reading the consumption; also fitting remote reading devices to the branches of the users of the other cohorts that have not been sampled; and processing the information provided by the remote reading devices to obtain a real-time value representative of the total consumption of the network.

Claims

1. A method for estimating in real time the total consumption of a fluid, in particular water or gas, distributed from a unit (A) to users (b1, b2 . . . ) via a network of supply pipes having a branch for each user, equipped with a meter for the fluid consumed by the user, wherein:

cohorts of users are determined, cohorts of users comprising a number of users having a homogeneous behavior concerning the consumption of fluid,

for at least one of these cohorts, a sample of users from the cohort is determined a number of which is less than the total number of users in the cohort, but statistically sufficient to represent the cohort,

only the branches of the users of each sample are equipped with a remote reading device for reading the consumption,

the branches of users in other cohorts that have not been sampled are also equipped with remote reading devices, and

the information provided by the remote reading devices is processed to obtain in real time a value representative of the total consumption of the network.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the cohorts of users are determined on the basis of a period of consumption of a plurality of months or a year and each cohort combines the users for whom the consumption over the considered period is between two predetermined consumption limits.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein all the branches of users in the upper cohort, corresponding to the highest consumptions, are equipped with remote reading devices, while the other cohorts, corresponding to consumptions above the null value, are sampled and only the branches of the users of the sample of each cohort are equipped with remote reading devices.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the number of cohorts and the number of users in a sample are determined in accordance with the required precision by the use of statistical rules.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the number of cohorts is equal to six, with one cohort of null consumption.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the indices of consumption provided by the remote reading devices are fitted at fixed hour by interpolation.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the composition of the cohorts is rectified by periodically updated information related to the consumption of the users.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the collected data is processed to eliminate outliers, to reconstitute missing data by interpolation or extrapolation and to determine the overall consumption.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein n′

denotes the total number of users of all the cohorts to be sampled, the size denoted n_h of a sample within a cohort h is effected according to the Neyman allocation according to which the size n_h depends on the headcount N_h of that cohort and on the square root S_h of the dispersion within this cohort;

10. A fluid distribution network employing a method as claimed in claim 1, this network comprising a set of pipes supplied by a unit and branches equipped with meters to deliver to the users the fluid to be consumed, some of these branches being equipped with remote reading devices, wherein the remote reading devices, the number of which is less than the number of meters, are distributed taking into account the consumption of each user, the probability of a branch being equipped with a remote reading device being in direct proportion to the consumption of the user connected to that branch.

11. The fluid distribution network as claimed in claim 10, wherein the number of branches equipped with remote reading devices is less than or equal to 20%, notably approximately 10% of the total number of branches, and the remote reading devices are distributed in accordance with the consumption of each user sample so that the total consumption estimated with this limited number of remote reading devices is reliable to within ±

10%.