As summer temperatures in northern Portugal increasingly push past 38°C (100°F), water providers can’t afford to treat heat waves and demand spikes as outliers. When water tanks run low, pumping costs surge and pressure drops threaten service to major cities and remote rural towns alike.
The stakes are especially high for Águas do Norte, a public water and wastewater utility serving nearly 2 million residents across 63 diverse Portuguese municipalities. It needs a system that can show what’s happening across thousands of kilometers of its water pipe network and help decide what to do next. That’s why the utility has increasingly turned to Bentley Systems software. In fact, Bentley’s OpenFlows Water solution has become central to how Águas do Norte plans, anticipates stress on its system, and makes smarter investment decisions. It’s also part of a broader collaboration with H2OPT—a Portuguese engineering firm specializing in real-time hydraulic modeling—to modernize northern Portugal’s water infrastructure and boost resilience in the face of climate and population change.
“We needed a model of the entire system, something we could use for smarter, faster and more reliable decision-making,” says Luís Nicolau, director of the utility’s Asset and Investment Management.
A Utility with a broad mission- and a complex network
Águas do Norte has a complex and challenging mandate. “We handle everything: drinking water, treatment, transmission to our municipal clients; and in eight communities, the full service to the end consumer. It’s a diverse system with very different challenges depending on the area,” Nicolau says.
Some subsystems serve major urban centers with heavy daily demand. Others supply rural regions where summer tourism creates sharp seasonal spikes. Topography varies, energy costs fluctuate, and individual municipalities have constraints that often date back decades.
Nicolau wanted a clearer view of all of it: the constraints, the risks, the priorities, and the long-term investment strategy that would tie them all together. Águas do Norte already used OpenFlows Water internally, but it needed a partner to take it further.
That’s where H2OPT entered the picture.
The Collaboration Begins
H2OPT leverages the expertise of NORAQUA, a civil engineering firm, to implement solutions focused on sustainability and efficiency in the urban water cycle. H2OPT won Águas do Norte’s public bidding process and set to work modeling the utility’s more than 25 subsystems using the Bentley software.
“The systems vary in size and behavior,” says Miguel Marques, the civil and water engineer at H2OPT. “In large systems, the main challenge is energy efficiency based on electricity tariffs periods. In smaller ones, the priority is ensuring supply during summer peaks. Each subsystem required a very different approach.”
Marques and his team worked closely with Águas do Norte’s engineers across asset management, operations, maintenance, and energy. This multidisciplinary collaboration became one of the keys to the project’s success.
“We involved every area,” Nicolau says. “Operations saw the benefits immediately. Energy saw the benefits. Suddenly everyone wanted to know how the model could help them in practice. That was a big turning point.”
Selecting OpenFlows Water
For H2OPT, OpenFlows Water was the obvious choice. “One of the biggest advantages is how easily we can create, calibrate, and update models,” Marques says. “We bring in real-time measurement data, simulate seasonal scenarios, and evaluate system behavior under different constraints.” The interoperability, he says, is a major advantage, especially because it provides the ability to integrate future data from the SCADA system, which enables real-time monitoring of voltage, current, and equipment status.
Águas do Norte had already deployed the Bentley software, so teams knew its potential. “We were already very happy with it,” Nicolau says. “And we were confident that Water supported our long-term strategy.”
What began as a modeling initiative quickly turned into a blueprint for smart capital planning and operational optimization. Using OpenFlows Water, the joint team identified more than 225 hydraulic improvements and operational adjustments across Águas do Norte’s network. Some were small but meaningful—valve adjustments, pressure zone refinements, and rule changes for pumps. Others highlighted long-term investment needs, totaling more than €4 million in high-priority projects.
The results got attention. “So far, 52 of the identified tasks are complete, and another 42 are in progress,” Nicolau reports. “We’re already seeing improvements across the company.”
One of the most tangible wins: energy savings. By optimizing 45% of total pumping stations, the team was able to save €176,000 in energy costs, Marques says. “Those are real, measurable results from better hydraulic understanding,” he says.
Changing The Modeling Mindset
Marques says the project did more than produce insights; it changed how Águas do Norte thinks about hydraulic modeling. “This project shifted the mindset from seeing modeling as a one-time effort to seeing it as a continuous process,” he says. “Utilities can test improvements, implement them, and then immediately assess their impact. It becomes an ongoing cycle of optimization.”
Both teams see this project as the first step toward a larger digital transformation.
“We think of this system modeling work as the foundation for future digital twin solutions,” Nicolau says. “Real-time data, predictive analysis, proactive planning—this is where we want to go.”
Digital twins could give Águas do Norte a live view of system behavior and allow operators to instantly test scenarios, from drought conditions to energy price fluctuations. “These tools will fundamentally change how utilities operate,” says Marques. “We’ll move from reactive to proactive asset management.”
Preparing for a hotter future
For Águas do Norte, the work is far from over. Nicolau is currently focused on executing the remaining improvement tasks while coordinating with the utility’s innovation team on next-generation systems. Marques continues to provide hydraulic modeling support as the network evolves and new challenges arise.
“What excites me is that this work directly improves people’s quality of life,” Marques says. “Reliable water service is essential, and when we solve these problems, communities feel the impact.”
Nicolau agrees. “We manage a critical service for millions of people. Making this system more efficient, more resilient, and more sustainable in a hotter future is truly meaningful work.”
