Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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26 | JUNE 2018 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk The Works: smart meters • WATER COMPANY VIEW "We get more meter reads in one day than we used to get in a year from our historical base of two million meters" STEPHANIE BAKER, METERING MANAGER THAMES WATER "The Thames Water area is classified as seriously water-stressed, and this will only increase as the population we serve grows – by 2045, we forecast that we will be serving another 2 million people. At the same time, the amount of water that we can take from rivers and underground sources is reducing, due to changes in the climate and the need to protect the environment. "As a result, we predict that there will be a shortfall between the amount of water available and the amount of water we need equivalent to the water needed by over 2 million people by 2045 unless we take action. "In 2014, the case for smart metering was approved through our water resources management plan and, a‚er an initial trial, we commenced our rollout in January 2016. Since then we have installed over 240,000 smart meters, which are firing back over 5.8 million hourly meter reads per day. To put that into perspective, that is more meter reads in one day than we used to get in a year from our historical meter base of over 2 million meters. "The value lies in the data and how this can help us manage our network. We're analysing hourly meter read data to quickly identify where there is water continuously flowing through a customer's meter for a sustained period. This is a good sign that there is a leak either on the customer's supply pipe or within the home such as a dripping tap or a leaking loo. "Now we can accurately identify this, quantify the size of the leak and potential bill impact, we can proactively engage our customers about getting that leak fixed, or taking up our free customer-side leak repair offering. "We have already saved almost 11 million litres of water per day by fixing customer-side leaks identified using smart meter data, and that's the amount of water needed by 77,000 people. This is where our investment in smart technology is paying back. "Still, we're only really at the beginning of our journey to understanding just how valuable the data can be. We're developing a much clearer picture of the balance between customer usage, leakage on our network and leakage on our customer's pipes. This simply wasn't possible before, with only around a third of our customers metered, and reads being collected twice annually. "Going forward, we will be looking at how we use meter data to mitigate and manage the impact of events on our network and, additionally, how we can combine meter data with the many million data points we already collect to develop the insight we need to take action where it matters most. We're at the early days in terms of harnessing that and I think there's a lot more we can do in terms of influencing behaviour and using that data to help us mitigate and manage events, such as picking up low-level main-side leakage in an area before it becomes a major event and even managing pressure in the most efficient and economical way. "Traditionally the industry has considered that customers with a water meter use between 10 and 15 per cent less water than an unmetered customer. With smart meters, we hope to exceed this by changing the way we interact with our customers and using regular and real-time data, year-round, to help them to save water, energy and money in their homes. In the future, we'd like to move to being able to provide people with usage alerts when their water use behaviour changes, or they reach a daily maximum they can select as well. "We have already received interest from around the globe about our smart metering programme, and as technology evolves and utilities embrace the Internet of Things, I can only expect that in the future we will see almost all water companies harnessing the value of smart meter data to engage their customers, manage demand, and control their network." Thames Water has installed 240,000 smart meters since January 2016