Along with its Czech investments in the Water Segment, Energie AG has been committed for years to reducing unaccounted for water and water supply network damage. Given that local authorities are responsible as the infrastructure owners for renovating grids (except for one investment – VaK Beroun, a.s.), Energie AG’s measures focus on locating and remedying leaks, which requires reporting and benchmarking of unaccounted for water and sustainable pipeline rehabilitation. In recent years, investments have been made in modern hardware and software for hydraulic network modelling and measurement as well as in employee training.
Valuable drinking water is lost every day due to damage to the network of water pipelines. This can be caused by various factors: the age of the network, pipe material, quality of installation, geology of the subsoil and material for the pipe bedding, distribution volume and pressure level. In the international water sector, unit water leakage is a commonly used measure of unaccounted for water. This indicates how many cubic metres of drinking water is lost per kilometre of a pipeline network per year (converted to a unit diameter) and, in turn, indicates the pipeline network’s condition. The benchmarking is carried out on an annual basis in 52 Energie AG supply areas with more than 5,000 residents. In 2007, 73% of networks were in good condition and 10% in average condition. At a time when the pipeline networks have been growing older and subjected to increased wear, it has been possible to increase the proportion of networks rated as good to 90% within 10 years. Since 2016, there have no longer been any networks rated as poor in Energie AG’s Czech service area.
The latest news about Energie AG’s water services in the Czech Republic, complete with key performance indicators, benchmarking and environmental details, has been published on an annual basis since 2011 as information for professionals and customers in Czech and German in the WaterPages magazine.