But we just piloted district metered areas and dynamic pressure zoning in a 22‑km distribution network and cut night flow by 14% without replacing pipe. Has anyone paired this with smart meter analytics or acoustic loggers to triage repairs, and what cost per cubic meter saved did you see over 12 months?
We paired AMI hourly leak flags with DMA pressure/flow to trigger “logger sweeps” the night after each PRV setpoint change — like turning down the stereo before hunting a rattle — and landed around 0.12–0.28 USD/m³ saved over 12 months (AMI CAPEX excluded). Small caveat: ramp PRVs in stages; “one big drop” gave us a couple of burst joints. What AMI granularity and logger spacing are you running, @OP?
We geofenced AMI burst/leak alerts by elevation bands within each DMA and rebaselined the alarm thresholds after each “dynamic pressure zoning” change, which kept smart-meter noise from masking real acoustic hits. All-in cost landed around $0.12/m³ saved over 12 months (logger rentals + PRV automation) on a 24‑km system, so with your 22‑km and “14%” night‑flow drop you’ll likely be in that range.