WEAM4i: WATER AND ENERGY ADVANCED MANAGEMENT FOR IRRIGATION

Project information
Agriculture sector is accountable for 30% of the total water consumption in Europe, but reaches up to 70% of total water consumption in several European southern countries. In recent years, most of the efforts have been focused on water efficiency, without taking care of energy aspects, resulting in some cases on a significant increase in energy consumption, both per irrigated surface and per volume unit of water. The WEAM4i project will mainly address 2 of the priorities of the EIP on Water: “Water-Energy nexus” and “Decision support systems (DSS) and monitoring”. The WEAM4i proposal is based on two innovative management concepts: 1. A water&energy smart grid for irrigation: allowing interactive energy use decisions, by introducing demand-side management and matching the consumption to the available energy offer, due to existing water storage capability (in reservoirs or in the soil) that enables an ”near-almost elastic” demand. 2. An innovative, cloud based, integration approach: an ICT platform based on a Service Oriented Architecture, for hosting the DSS applications, while, at field level, the existing local irrigation systems will remain. Techniques for resource efficiency at local level will be demonstrated on the irrigation systems aforementioned: for saving water, for improving the m3/kwh ratio and for the minimisation of the operational cost of water supply infrastructures. Full-scale demonstration activities will be performed in 3 EU countries (PT, ES and DE), covering a wide range of landscapes and crop types, from southern to central EU. Companies and SMEs will benefit from the future commercialization of the outcomes while the users will reduce the operational costs of their irrigation systems. To Sum up: once important water savings have been achieved, the new challenge for the irrigation sector is to minimise the energy costs. The WEAM4i project aims to provide innovative solutions for this challenge.
Project partners: 
METEOSIM SL
AQUAGRI - ASSISTENCIA TECNICA E CONSULTORIA ACE
AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
CREARA CONSULTORES SL
COMUNIDAD GENERAL DE REGANTES DEL CANAL DE BARDENAS
WATERWATCH BV
ZIM PLANT TECHNOLOGY GMBH
INSTITUTO VALENCIANO DE INVESTIGACIONES AGRARIAS
FEDERACION NACIONAL DE COMUNIDADES DE REGANTES
GRUPO HISPATEC INFORMATICA EMPRESARIAL SA
INERGIA GRUPO ENGINEERING & ARCHITECTURE SL
LANDWIRTSCHAFTSKAMMER NIEDERSACHSEN
VON DER OHE KARSTEN
ECLAREON GMBH
UNITE TECHNIQUE DU SEMIDE GEIE
ADASA SISTEMAS, S.A.U.
LGRAIN GMBH BEWASSERUNGSTECHNIK
FENAREG - FEDERACAO NACIONAL DE REGANTES DE PORTUGAL
HYDROLOGIC RESEARCH BV
Project dates: 
November 2013 to April 2017
Contact
Contact project
Contact organisation: 
METEOSIM SL
Funding
Funding agency: 
European Commission - Seventh Framework Programme
Grant: 
k€5166917
Total budget: 
k€7601476