Water and soil association: Optimizing water supply for the Vorderpfalz region

Optimizing and securing the water supply

Most of the earth is covered in water. However, only three percent of it is fresh water. Liquid fresh water is a precious commodity that is becoming increasingly scarce worldwide. The amount of fresh water consumed each year is made up of three parts: Private households make up the smallest part and industry the middle part.  

Agriculture is the largest consumer, accounting for almost 70 percent. Where a lot is consumed, a lot can of course also be saved. Especially when you consider that most of the water used in agriculture simply seeps into the ground or evaporates. This water is not only lost, it is actually harmful. Constant overwatering salinizes the soil and makes it infertile.  

Water abstraction in agriculture in Germany is often not clearly regulated and hardly ever monitored. If we want to find ways to shape the future in connection with the national water strategy, the first step must be to make water extraction transparent - digitalization can help here. The next step is to coordinate demand and supply, for example on the basis of weather data and soil moisture meters. The aim must be to ensure that there is enough drinking water for human consumption, but also that agriculture can irrigate sufficiently but efficiently. 

BEULCO GmbH & Co. KG created iQ HydrON in 2021, a cloud-based solution for optimizing agricultural irrigation. At the heart of iQ HydrON is the digitalization of the standpipes used for irrigation, the measurement of important consumption data and the optimization of water consumption in the entire supply area of the Wasser- und Bodenverband zur Beregnung der Vorderpfalz (BVV). 

The BVV's irrigation area, which covers over 15,000 hectares with over 600 km of distribution network and 15 of its own booster pumping stations, was to be digitized. The aim was to digitally record the more than 8,000 BVV hydrants and the assigned standpipes as well as to enable the localization and digital recording of meter readings and other important parameters. An ambitious and large project with many challenges, for which none of the partners approached so far were able to offer a suitable solution.

A specific platform solution for BVV based on the iQ Cloud

After further coordination with the BVV, the iQ HydrON development project was launched in November 2020. The first version of the platform and the corresponding hardware should be ready in March 2021 so that a larger field test can be started. 

The iQ Cloud formed the basis of the development work. BEULCO's own cloud is the brain of all iQ products. It forms the backbone of all digitalization projects in the field of water networks. Data from existing iQ products as well as external sensors and software systems is collected and processed in the iQ Cloud and made available to end customers on the relevant platforms or in existing systems via interfaces. Data protection and data security, in some cases for sensitive customer data, were already of the utmost importance in previous projects and were implemented to the highest standard through collaboration with the IT specialists at PHYSEC GmbH. The IT company from Bochum was also brought on board for the highly specific project of the irrigation association. 

Thanks to the cooperation with the specialized IT service provider PHYSEC, the security of all communication, customer and consumption data was maximized.

The smart meters and IoT applications from iQ water solutions enable the digitalization of the network infrastructure. But digital communication also harbors risks. For example, communicating and controlling components in supply networks, especially in the area of critical infrastructure, are attractive gateways for attackers. PHYSEC offers protection against such dangers with an exclusive solution. PHYSEC GmbH implements the protection of the data connection according to the specifications of the Federal Office for Security and Information Technology (BSI) for established technologies and thus enables the digitalization of critical infrastructures based on innovative communication via LoRa-WAN and NB-IoT.  

The unique and patented encryption complies with the technical guideline for cryptographic specifications to realize projects of the Federal Government (BSI-TR-03116-3) for worldwide networks. This allows metering systems to be installed based on the IT security catalog of the Federal Network Agency in accordance with Section 11 (1a) EnWG. The solution covers the entire data connection from the meter to the ERP system, the grid control room or the BVV's specific IoT platform.

User management

In order to be able to conveniently manage the now broad portfolio of different functions and assign individual functions and rights to users, the platform was initially expanded to include a clearly structured user management system adapted to everyday irrigation. Administration and irrigation tasks can now be managed and assigned at various administration and user levels. New users are added with just a few clicks and have immediate access to exactly the information they need to become active or create new users themselves. 

Weather stations 

At the customer's request, over 150 different weather stations in the areas of rain, wind and temperature have been connected to iQ HydrON. Depending on the set transmission interval, the irrigation association now receives meteorological information around the clock, such as wind speed, amount of precipitation or (wet) temperature over the entire irrigation area. If required, individual users can add important weather stations to a favorites list and thus identify specific areas at a glance.  

More in-depth information on various parameters with a time reference is provided by the on-demand statistics, which also allow the stations to be compared with each other and clearly displayed.