Engaging Iceland on H-HOPE technology

H-HOPE organised its first stakeholder event in Iceland to discuss the technology developed under H-HOPE.

The event aimed to collect feedback and understand the potential utility with end-users following the progress and development of H-HOPE technology one year since the project launched in 2022.

Taking place online and on-site at the Reykjavik University in Iceland, the event brought together peers from Iceland and abroad and culminated in an exchange between a targeted audience to discuss the importance of effective water management using innovative technologies and to explore the use of the innovative energy harvester systems developed in the H-HOPE project.

Dr. Sigríður Sigurðardóttir, Head of Digital Development at Veitur discussed the use of smart metering for water management within their hydraulic networks. Orkuveita Reykjavíkur (OR), an Icelandic energy and utility company that provides electricity, geothermal hot water through district heating and cold water for consumption serves nearly 60% of households in Iceland in electricity distribution and 40% in water supply, with installed smart meter systems within water networks across Iceland. Sigríður outlined the benefits of smart metering systems, including the use of precise consumption metrics enabling households to save, insights into their consumption patterns and to help network operators gain a holistic view on investent needs in order to prevent outages and provide efficient supply of water.

Smart meter data can provide accurate data for simulation models, assist predictive maintenance versus reactive maintenance and test different scenarios when expanding the water network planning future demand in tandem with municipalities. Creating a digital twin, devloping real time models and connecting them with live data allows insights into disruptionsand faster leakage detection.

H-HOPE aims to power these sensors that lack constant electricity supply to help power smart meters. OR is participating and has mapped installation areas in their District heating systems, springs in remote areas far from infrastructure, pipes under the ocean, and wells.

Giovanna Cavazzini presented developments under the H-HOPE project and the face challenges related to power supply of sensors and developing hidden hydro. The main target of H-HOPE project is to exploit untapped hydropower in natural and artificial water flows, like water distribution networks, irrigation channels, wastewater treatment channels and lagoon natural flows. Turbines are expensive to install to recurperate such energy, thus the H-HOPE project is focused on exploiting vortices in water flows, which can produce energy via pizoelectric patches. The case studies that are providing data are: 4 distribution networks, hot water distribution networks, wastewater treatments and a lagoon.

Piping, open channels and open stream applications have different operating conditions, with variable water velocities and directions impacting the generation of electricity. The aim of H-HOPE is to generate enough power to power these sensors and to understand how much power is needed in digitising district heating network and water networks.

Video of the stakeholder event can be viewed by clicking on the YouTube link here.

Presentations from the event can be found using the following links.