Unequal measures

When Ofwat disbanded its Smart Metering Advisory Group this year, the chance of water following energy on smart metering effectively evaporated. It's a shame, says Andy Godley

While smart metering for energy is being driven forward by government mandate, smart metering for water is lagging a considerable way behind. Water was never central to the UK smart metering rollout programme but many in the industry were expecting that the systems, infrastructure and protocols being developed for energy would support water smart metering so that it could be added at a later date.

However, water is not even mentioned in any recent publications from the smart metering programme. This is unfortunate, because smart metering has the potential to transform the relationship between water companies and their customers and enable the development of new services in many areas, bringing benefits to individual customers and wider society – as well as the water companies.

The Walker review into household water charging (2009) recognised that smart metering offered potential benefits but said more work was required to establish the case. It recommended that Ofwat take a lead in doing this work. Ofwat duly set up the Smart Metering Advisory Group (SMAG) in 2010 comprising a number of key stakeholders including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency, water companies, meter suppliers and customer groups. The SMAG set itself three key tasks: to liaise with those driving the energy smart metering programme and “keep the door open” for water; to explore the case for water smart metering; and to maintain communications and exchange information across the stakeholder community.

The SMAG group was disbanded earlier this year and any momentum it generated in these areas is rapidly being lost. The door for water to be included in the development of the national smart metering infrastructure and standards that was just about being kept ajar by the SMAG now seems to have closed. Neither the latest version of the smart metering equipment technical specifications protocol, aimed at ensuring interoperability between smart metering systems, nor the position paper from the government published on 1 July, mention water at all.

Given the strong links between energy and water consumption, this is shortsighted. Water could support the objectives of energy in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The inconsistent attitude to smart metering among the water companies has not helped. While some are engaged and actively carrying out trials, there is no coherent view as to the industry’s needs. Smart metering is not just the deployment of radio to facilitate meter reading but the analysis and use of the data being generated to enhance service and operations and enable customers to make informed decisions on water use. The detail and just how that is achieved, though, is still the subject of much conjecture.

Recent projects funded through the water industry’s research body, UKWIR, have contributed to the second of the SMAG’s objectives, exploring the case for smart metering. Much of the discussion about benefits tends to focus on what the water supplier might get out of it (see box). So what of the customer? Many of the benefits highlighted will also benefit the customer, directly or indirectly.

However, the societal benefits go wider than this and widespread adoption of smart metering would likely stimulate the development of a wide range of new services. Two examples are:

· Using real-time data from smart meters (water and energy) to help care professionals unobtrusively monitor vulnerable individuals being cared for in the community. For example, flushing the loo and filling the kettle would show someone had got up each morning. Alarms could also be triggered if taps and appliances were left on.

· Working with insurers to use leak alarms from water smart meters to alert customers to bursts or leaks that could lead to property damage, thus reducing claims.

The difficulty is that for today’s business case-­driven, risk-averse water industry, there is a Catch-22 here: many of the expected benefits are difficult to quantify with any reliability until smart meters have been implemented on a wide scale and for a sustained period. Small-scale trials help, but what is really needed is concerted co-ordination to bring together the lessons being learned and identify the gaps. This was the third of the SMAG’s activities but little was published, and despite Ofwat’s stated intention of continuing the SMAG as a virtual group, nothing has happened since the group stopped. Following recent reorganisations at Ofwat, it would appear that nothing is likely to happen in the near future.

Clearly, water smart metering is not without its problems: the lack of universal metering; reading challenges due to meter location; and the data protection, sharing, storage and management issues rapidly becoming apparent in the energy sector.

None of these problems should be underestimated, but they are not an excuse to put water in the too hard box. It is disappointing that, despite the efforts of a few trying to fly the flag, water smart metering is not being actively encouraged by government and regulators, and is not being given the kind of support that energy smart metering was given.

The Water Bill 2013/14 currently going through Parliament would have been an ideal opportunity for the government to provide some steer and support to the industry – perhaps by encouraging wider trials to assess benefits and set standards at a national level. This would have provided a clear signal to suppliers and innovators and could have led to the development of truly smart metering for water. By leaving matters to the individual water companies to act independently in their own areas and interests, it is customers who will lose out.

Andy Godley is a senior consultant at WRc

Supplier benefits from smart metering

· Demand reduction. Smart metering would improve customers’ engagement with their water use, via home display units, bills, websites or smartphones. This would encourage customers to modify their behaviour and use less water, and enable targeting of water efficiency messages.

· Sophisticated water tariffs, to help modify water use patterns and, for example, reduce peak demand and open up customer choice.

· Customer-side leakage reduction, by alerting the customer to continuous flows which are likely to be leaks (though trials suggest that work is needed to set appropriate thresholds for this, avoiding false alarms and excessive customer disruption).

· Network leakage reduction.

· Meter reading costs cut and accuracy improved.

· Customer query handling improved through being able to read the meter in close to real time.

· Debt levels reduced by more frequent and accurate consumption based bills.

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 6th September July 2013.

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