How intelligent metering platforms could alleviate SA’s water crisis

South Africa is the world’s 30th driest country.

Let that sink in for a moment.

As climate change continues to wreak havoc on natural ecosystems around the globe, we’re in a precarious position. Our average annual rainfalls of 450mm are almost half that of the world average – 860mm. Over the past 18 months we’ve seen the devastating impact of prolonged droughts, on our economy and our people.

While this drought may be drawing to a close, there will be more in the future. The only way for us to prosper will be for millions of South Africans to take the issue more seriously, and conserve this precious resource wherever they can.

But just how do we go about doing this?

While solving the complex issue of water shortages requires various interventions from a number of stakeholders, we believe that intelligent metering systems could play a key role – helping us to better understand our water usage, know where water is being wasted, and start making positive changes.

Benefits for municipalities

For municipalities, these systems can support broader water conservation programmes, while ensuring accurate billing and collections. In fact, they can start developing price incentives that help citizens to constrain their usage.

For example, with smart water metering, authorities can build tools to analyse usage patterns. If excessive usage is recorded in a particular household, they could send alerts, implement restricted water flows, or enforce variable tariff structures. There are various psychological levers to pull, to encourage people to become more conscious and to penalise those that use water excessively.

If usage is routinely noted between the hours of 2am to 5am, there’s a good possibility that a leak somewhere in the household could be causing this unusual usage. With smart metering, alerts could be sent to the homeowner, suggesting that they investigate the possibility of a leak.

In some of our trials with the Western Cape town of George, we found that up to 6% of households are losing one litre per hour due to leaks – resulting in 1.7 million litres of wasted water in the town each year. This is a scenario that’s being played out in every village, town and city, nationwide.

And it’s not just in reducing leaks that these platforms can play a role. With the water metering platform integrated into the same platform as smart electricity metering, it becomes possible for households to overlay data about their electricity usage, with data relating to water usage. This gives homeowners a perspective on how much of their water is used for various appliances – such as the geyser, the dishwasher, the garden, or the pool.

Real-time feedback

Most homeowners rely on post-paid water meters, often receiving ambiguous ‘estimates’ for their water bills. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for our general sense of apathy towards water conservation stems from this inability to actually see our usage at a very accurate, granular level.

But imagine if checking your water usage was as easy as opening up a smartphone app, and getting a near real-time sense of how much water you’ve used this month, which hours of the day see the most consumption, how that compares with households of a similar size, and how your bill might be affected if you surpass certain usage thresholds?

With this kind of visibility over our consumption, we’d start to become far more aware of how we’re using our water. It’s similar to the behavioural science study where motorists were shown road signs of their current speed, and the encouragement to slow down. This immediate feedback about their actions (driving too fast) caused more drivers to slow down, than did simple speed limit signs.

Combined with sensor-based technology in the pipes, smart metering platforms also enable municipalities to check the quality of the water – swiftly picking up any issues (such as chemical imbalances or sediment deposits) and minimising their impact.

Ultimately, our nation’s future is reliant on a steady supply of quality water to communities and households. As we reflect on the impact of this most-recent drought, it’s time to turn our attention to technology, and find ways to harness the power of intelligent metering platforms. It may be the only way we’ll survive in this very uncertain future.

By Johan Jansen van Rensburg, Portfolio Manager: Cross Industry Solutions at T-Systems South Africa