Non-revenue water to drive utility smart meter adoption by 28%
LONDON, England - Smart water meter deployments across Europe will increase by 28% over the next ten years from an installed base of 11 million meters.
That’s according to a new report from Bluefield Research, which predicts that big data will play a key role in the water industry moving forward.
As part of the progression to smart technology, Bluefield said there will be an increased use of advanced meter technologies to enable more real-time network and customer analytics.
A key drive for this is non-revenue water, which accounts for on average 20% across European utilities.
The adoption of smart water meters signals a “critical step in moving towards more efficient operations”, the research company said.
Utilities are expected toharness the value of data and analytics to address unbilled water consumption and rising capital and operating costs.
In July 2016, Austin Water in Texas was awarded a US $80.2 million loan to replace customers' water meters with smart meters - as well as another US $87 million for the improvement of the city's reclaimed water system.
Several municipalities across Texas have already rolled out advanced water metering infrastructure. The planned rollout in Austin, of 250,000 meters, follows hundreds of complaints about unusually high water bills stemming from undetected leaks. The project will take five to seven years to be completed.
Furthermore, in August water technology company Xylem acquired US company Sensus for US$1.7bn, marking a company move into the data and analytical space (read story).
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- More information on Bluefield Research’s Market Insight, Smart Water Meters in Europe: Utility Strategies Drive Adoption, 2016-2020, can be found here.
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