By Graham Symmonds
The evolution of the Smart Grid for Water and rate designs have progressed to the point where utilities can now actively engage consumers in real-time, conscious reduction in consumption. Automated metering systems help water agencies monitor and immediately report water use, dramatically increasing the visibility of water, and providing to consumers the necessary feedback to achieve sustained conservation.
Water scarcity is a looming problem and changing individual behavior to compensate is a key element of sustainability. Unfortunately, the economic value of water and the consumer's experiential understanding of where, when and how they consume water stands in the way. The evolution of the Smart Grid for Water and rate designs have progressed to the point where utilities can now actively engage the end consumer in "direct-drive conservation": the real-time, conscious reduction in consumption.
For the first time water agencies have the ability to monitor and immediately report water use, dramatically increasing the visibility of water, and providing to consumers the necessary feedback to achieve sustained conservation. Further, through effective rate design, consumers can be financially rewarded for conservation.
Editors note: Graham Symmonds is Chief Technology Officer for Global Water Resources, a company that owns and operates regulated water and wastewater utilities and is active in the field of Total Water Management. The company also markets Fathom™ – an integrated suite of technology products designed to bring heightened efficiencies to utility operations.
Messaging
Water conservation has become a major theme of many utilities. Websites and utility customer care centers are replete with exhortations to turn off the tap while brushing your teeth, to stop irrigating your lawn in the rain, to not use your hose as a brush for your driveway. These messages are important but often fall short of measurable impact. Water managers have been so successful in engineering solutions to our water needs that the average consumer not only believes that clean and plentiful water must be available on demand, but they pass not a thought about the complexity of this service. The ignorance of the personal impact each consumer has on our water resources is a major hurdle to sustainability. A shift to a water scarcity message can be more effective in this regard.
Global Water's view is that the volatility of water resources in the face of an increasingly erratic climate system is rapidly driving our past engineering-centered water management polices into obsolescence. To be sustainable, we need to adopt a distributed approach to the demand management – and that means engaging the consumer at a fundamentally more granular level.
Data Granularity
A utility can tell you to the millisecond when a booster pump turned on; however, in many cases it cannot tell you until next month – or the month after, or six months later – where that water went. That's not acceptable. In a world where every drop counts, instantaneous understanding of the entire water system is required.
Further, continuity of revenue is now a major concern for utilities in a time of shrinking population bases and dwindling budgets. And for consumers, that means costs are going up.
Increasing price certainly makes people more aware of their usage. In 2009, Boenning & Scattergood noted: "as with the sudden interest in fuel-efficient cars in the U.S., consumers generally become much more interested in conservation and efficiency when the price of the commodity in question - be it oil or water - becomes high enough to provide that motivation."
In other words, when water is cheap, no one notices. As prices increase, people look to control their consumption. To do so requires data – data that most utilities cannot readily supply. However, given access to highly granular, time-relevant data, consumers can make dramatic changes in consumption. A recent study completed by California State University indicated that through the provision of instantaneous feedback on water consumption, average water consumption reductions in the order of 14% can be achieved.
In addition, subtle societal pressures can be reinforced with access to such data. Robert Cialdini, a psychologist at Arizona State University, recently noted: "People don't recognize how powerful the pull of the crowd is on them…We can move people to environmentally friendly behavior by simply telling them what those around them are doing."
