Author(s)

S. J. Mecca & S. D. Mecca

Abstract

Stella has been successfully used to model water supply systems [1] including the representation of residential demand [2] in such systems (Stella is a product of ISEE Systems, Hanover, NH USA.) This paper documents the use of this modeling tool in simulating demand from several appliances common to commercial water users and applying this technique to commercial water auditing. The application of the model to the audits of six commercial organizations is presented. The model is being used for water management/conservation studies but also has potential for representing commercial water demand in more comprehensive supply system models. Keywords: water audit, commercial water auditing, commercial water demand, water management, water conservation. 1 Motivation The management of water resources has required extensive modelling with reliable data for both validation and decision making. Information regarding end-use consumption in residential, commercial, industrial and governmental sectors is essential in comprehensive water resource models. Yet, reliability has often meant metering, which, on a distributed basis, can be expensive and time consuming. In the residential sector, guidance on water demand can often be gleaned and scaled from large studies such as the AWWA REUW study, which spanned several areas and districts around the United States [1]. This data has been successfully scaled to a small municipal system in Jamestown, Rhode Island in the US by normalizing computed demand to billing audit data for this community [2]. The effort was motivated by a need for representing residential end-use of water in a comprehensive dynamic-stochastic water management

Keywords

water audit, commercial water auditing, commercial water demand, water management, water conservation.