On Sunday, June 21, 2024, Chema Nebot, VP EMEA APAC BR of Idrica, was interviewed on the program “Lo que viene”, by José Ángel Cuadrado, on Spain’s COPE radio station.
In this conversation, Chema addressed critical issues such as the end-to-end water cycle, the challenges of the circular economy, the importance of democratizing data and technologies including artificial intelligence.
Idrica is committed to innovation and sustainability in end-to-end water cycle management, and this interview was an excellent opportunity to find out more about the initiatives and solutions that are making a difference in the sector.
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José Ángel Cuadrado
What is the water cycle like in a big city, such as Madrid, for example? I mean, what happens before I turn on the tap in my house and what happens afterwards to the water that has gone down the drain?
Chema Nebot
Well, the truth is that turning a faucet on is a bit like magic. I can turn on the faucet at any time of the day, and water always comes out. At least in Spain we are lucky in this sense, and there are many things going on behind this. Obviously, we are not going to go into too much detail because it is a very complex though fascinating subject. When you start working in the water sector, you realize that it is really interesting and you are always learning, but anyway, to put it very simply, from the moment the water reaches our homes, the process of capturing and recovering raw water begins. There are many ways of recovering water and capturing raw water, obviously, from wells, springs, rivers, reservoirs and also, recently, from the sea, with the whole issue of salination. Then that water has to be processed and treated to make it fit for human consumption. This is the treatment phase.
And then there is a distribution phase, which is actually several different stages in one. What we commonly call the main networks, which are the large-diameter pipes, which may come from a treatment plant, take water to the municipalities that use this catchment source. Then there is the secondary network, which are smaller pipes that carry the water to our homes. That is the drinking water part. Then, there is also a more complex system, which is the sanitation network. When we flush the toilet or the water goes down our drains, as it goes back to the environment, there are also sanitation networks, and treatment and reuse plants until the water is returned to its natural environment. And this can get much more complicated. There are separative and combined networks, where rainwater goes one way and sanitation goes another. But again, there are many posts and many websites that explain the water cycle if you want to know more about it.
José Ángel Cuadrado
Do you think we have become accustomed to paying very little for our water?
Chema Nebot
Well, it’s not a question of being used to paying very little… this is a problem at a different level. It is a question of investments in water, where they come from, whether they are simply based on what consumers pay, for example. There are many factors that impact and affect water charges. One of them is obviously the availability of the resource. For example, in areas where the supply, the catchment, is taken from the sea, then the cost of treating that water is much higher and, therefore, what we should pay or what is paid in those areas is higher. Then there are the energy costs, because in the end the water has to be pumped, it has to be transported from one place to another wherever that location is, and this depends on the energy costs in each country. There are many factors that influence water charges. It is true that, I don’t know how to say it, there are also a lot of misconceptions, which are changing, about the fact that water should ultimately be free.
José Ángel Cuadrado
Do you think that if we paid more for our water, we would use it more responsibly than we do now?
Chema Nebot
I don’t think so. I think it is a matter of awareness and there are actually a lot of studies that back this up. In Ireland, for instance, there is no water bill for a series of traditional reasons. People are charged a series of taxes but when you look at the water consumption in Ireland, it is very similar to Spain. It is not because they don’t pay for water that they use more or less. I don’t think it works like that. The Scandinavian countries have plenty of water, obviously, it’s everywhere, there is a lot of water available, but they are among the countries most committed to efficiently using this resource. So, I think it is due to a series of factors, but I don’t think that the price of water right now is something that is having an impact on us. In my house, when I was a child, my parents used to say turn the lights off, electricity costs a lot of money. I don’t have the feeling that this is happening, at least in Spain. Turn the faucet off, we won’t be able to pay the water bill. So, I think we could talk about water prices for a long time, but I think that the cost of water in Spain is around one or two euros, approximately, compared to Europe. There are other countries where the cost of water per cubic meter is close to 9 or 10 euros. So, in Spain it is reasonably priced, but as I say, there are many factors that have an impact on this.
José Ángel Cuadrado
Tell us a bit about the platform you have developed, which incorporates artificial intelligence for water management. Who is this platform being targeted at? Who is going to use it? And, above all, the utilities that use it, which I imagine manage water in different parts of the world, how are they going to reach the citizen? In other words, how am I going to know or realize that there is a utility that uses technology that optimizes water use and monitoring?
Chema Nebot
I would say that the industry has not resolved this, it is unfinished business. I mean, there is the idea of democratizing data and sharing what is happening with resources, with the assets which, in the end, the companies that have the operation and maintenance contracts and the concessions often have to share what they are doing with the City Council, with the regulators, etc. But there is very little democratization of what is actually happening, or what is changing, that actually reaches the citizen. There should be a lot more. Before we were talking about the parts of the water cycle. When you search in Google images: tell me about the end-to-end water cycle, people do not appear. Everything else appears, the rivers, the mountains, the clouds, etcetera, but not the user. But I believe that the citizen is a key element that should appear in any water cycle diagram, yet it is a group that does not have much information about what is going on. I mean, you can go online and see the state of the reservoirs on a website, that’s great. Or in some water utilities that have smart meters, I can see my consumption at an hourly, daily level, but there is a lot of information missing about the quality of the water or the amount of water available in my city or the comparison of my consumption compared to an average person with a similar lifestyle. Imagine, as a family of five, what should my water consumption be compared to another family? In other words, there is little awareness of water consumption and if we talk about sanitation, about wastewater, it is even worse. So, well, we are talking about unfinished business.
Idrica is the result of many years of operations and maintenance in Aguas de Valencia. It is the progression of a systems department in a water utility, which is quite a peculiar case. It is not very common for this to happen and for an independent company to sell digital transformation in the water sector. And our strong point is that we have already done it and that we have many years of experience behind us. This can be linked to the concept of artificial intelligence that you mentioned and to the platforms. Idrica’s success is the database it has, like what is happening now, when the technology appears and is consolidated like AI, to be able to train the algorithms, train the AI, calibrate information. If you don’t have historical data, it’s very difficult to get machine learning and all these things absolutely right.
We don’t go to our clients, who are water cycle operators, in the different points of the system, and say that we have magical software, wonderful algorithms, but apart from all that, we tell them that we have experience in having managed infrastructures. And that’s what we are very proud of at Idrica. This gives us credibility in an international context. We have offices in many countries, basically because we already have lots of experience.
José Ángel Cuadrado
Is there any particular country that stands out in terms of digital transformation?
Chema Nebot
Well, it is going to look a bit bad if I say Spain, especially now, at a time when there is so much talk about Spain with the Euro and the football, but really, after seeing many countries, I think Spain is very advanced in terms of the digital transformation of the water cycle. I would like to highlight this, because Spain, along with France, has traditionally had very robust operations and maintenance companies and engineering firms. But now we can actually say that Spain is also a benchmark in terms of digital transformation. So, I would say Spain, of course. And then, there are places where, due to water stress, which is basically a lack of water, such as the Middle East, where we can talk about the determination of these countries to invest in digital transformation. I mean, I think that some other European countries are over calculating the return on investment. In other countries, there is a clear resolve that this is the right thing to do, and they are very willing to go for digital transformation. And I think that, in that sense, in Europe we are a little bit slower than other regions such as the Middle East. So, the Middle East is one of the regions we like to work with the most because they have a great vision for the future.
José Ángel Cuadrado
Which countries in the Middle East or others would you single out for their water digital transformation, despite droughts?
Chema Nebot
I wouldn’t single out any one in particular, in terms of management. I think they are all fairly similar. Although, in this case, in my own particular experience, Saudi Arabia is a striking example, because of the projects that are being carried out there, then Qatar and Dubai have caught my attention, and we like working with them. Then, places like Austria and New Zealand are also very advanced, with a well-defined line of work. But I couldn’t give you a very precise answer. They all have their own particularities.
José Ángel Cuadrado
Apart from drought, what other challenges are we going to have to deal with in the next few years?
Chema Nebot
Well, I think that one of the challenges in Spain, and I would almost extend it to the area as a whole, is the issue of the circular economy and the monitoring of all types of water organizations, due to a question of governance. Water competencies are highly decentralized and shared out. The river basin water authorities are responsible for the raw water resource and for water transfers. Then we have public utilities responsible for water treatment, others for distribution, others for reuse. So, it is very difficult to measure how efficient we are in the overall water cycle. I mean, from the moment the water reaches our reservoirs and our rivers, how that water is then distributed among the different users and how it is then reused. I think this is the major issue that needs to be solved, because there are no established mechanisms to be able to regulate the water cycle from start to finish. The competencies are very decentralized. So, we are talking about breaking down the information silos within a water utility, which is really one of the great challenges we need to tackle. And doing it through digitalization brings its own challenges. So, I think water governance is something that we have to work hard on.
