Non-Revenue Water is one of the costliest, most persistent challenges facing water utilities. It is water that has been produced and put into the network but never billed — lost to leaks, theft or metering inaccuracies. Reducing it is one of the fastest ways a utility can recover value and improve service.
What is Non-Revenue Water (NRW)?
Non-Revenue Water is the difference between the volume of water a utility puts into its distribution system and the volume it ultimately bills customers for. It is made up of physical losses (leaks and bursts), commercial losses (under-metering and unauthorised use) and unbilled authorised consumption.
High NRW means treated water — and the energy and cost behind it — is lost before it reaches a paying customer, while also straining supply security.
Why traditional NRW management struggles
- Leak detection is often reactive, responding only after visible bursts.
- Manual night-flow analysis across thousands of zones is slow and error-prone.
- Work orders can be misassigned, wasting field crew time.
- Without analytics, utilities lack an accurate, zone-level picture of where losses occur.
AI strategies every utility should use
- Apply machine learning to predict flow and detect anomalies at the metering-zone level.
- Automate Minimum Night Flow analysis to pinpoint likely leakage.
- Correlate leak repairs with night-flow changes to quantify the real impact of interventions.
- Geocode and prioritise work orders so field teams act on the highest-value zones first.
How HydroRise Sentinel delivers results
Our HydroRise Sentinel platform automates Natural Rate of Rise analysis and optimises NRW management across selected DMZs in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya for Air Selangor.
With DMZ-level models achieving R² above 0.94 for flow prediction, the system automated NRR estimation across all zones and identified and corrected 22% of misassigned work orders — sharply improving the accuracy and speed of NRW diagnostics.
Key takeaways
- NRW is treated water that is produced but never billed — a major, recoverable loss.
- AI turns slow, reactive leak management into proactive, zone-level diagnostics.
- HydroRise Sentinel automates NRR and NRW analysis across nearly 2,000 metering zones.
