When water stressed regions around the world search for water conservation programs to replicate, their eyes quickly turn to Australia.

This already arid continent has, since 2001, been suffering from a long and painful drought. With both rural and urban water reserves plummeting, water consumption patterns, and attitudes, had to change, and change quickly. Tight water restrictions were implemented in many regions and new water saving devices subsidised. The move to billing households on water consumption, rather than on the value of their property, has also forced consumers to link usage with cost.

But have these programs actually had an impact? The results would suggest so. Total residential urban water consumption has reduced by 12 per cent since 2003, even on the back of a 7.7 per cent population expansion (http://bit.ly/urban_water_consumption). But population growth and climate change will place further demands on already stretched water resources.  For a country rich in natural minerals, water will continue to be its most prized commodity.

So as other nations facing shortages consider water metering and increase the frequency and severity of water restrictions, Australians are instead looking beyond these measures to a smarter means of water consumption management. The blanket approach to water efficiency is changing to one based more on individually accountable usage.

DRIVING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Many water commissions and utilities have already started down this path; the state of Queensland is a good example. It has for the last few years set fairly aggressive voluntary residential use targets. The latest, Target 200, expects households to use less than 200 litres per person per household, two thirds of the pre- drought daily consumption of 300 litres. Households using more than 300 litres per day receive notification and could receive a total outdoor water ban. In parallel it has backed up this tough stance with a range of education programs on water efficiency and easy to read water bills that highlight any savings made.  Visual comparisons are made between households in the same area and those with the same number of inhabitants. For businesses, efficiency improvement goals are even tougher.

But with much of the water billing in Australia done on a quarterly basis, there tends to be a significant lag between actual consumption and visibility of that consumption. In times of severe water shortage, this can make it difficult for consumers to know if their water usage is running below revised consumption targets. This issue is even more acute with utilities that bill water usage on an annual basis - commonplace in the UK and Europe.

REAL TIME CONSUMPTION VISIBILITY

The obvious answer is to implement water measuring devices that capture more granular data – and thus give consumers a real time or near real time window to their water consumption.  The deployment of true interval based smart meters is one option, but is for many, too capital intensive in the short term and fraught with major technical challenges. 

A few Australasian metering technology companies have instead focused on developing a much lower cost pulse-based data logger and a raft of such products are now available.  Progressive water utilities are rolling these out to sit alongside the existing meter to record the time and date when a predetermined volume is consumed. The data is then transmitted back to a central site via GPRS or RF, on a daily or even weekly basis – and presented to utilities and customers highlighting potential leakages and excessive consumption.

Utilities can then tap into this information to: 

·         Let consumers know how they are performing - We all tend to react better to targets than we do restrictions. By providing near real time visibility of usage against targets, households are much more likely to curb consumption immediately, when it is needed the most. 

·         Improve Leakage detection - Customer premise based leaks are usually hard to pinpoint when billing on a monthly or quarterly basis. By breaking down water use into time periods throughout the day, any continual overnight usage can be quickly detected - a common indicator of such leaks.

·         Prevent un-authorised use. In periods of drought or lowered water targets, utilities can monitor if consumption is dropping as per the general trend, and/or detect spikes in the evening or at night that could represent outdoor water use in breach of restrictions.

FLEXIBLE BILLING AND CRM ESSENTIAL

But access to this consumption data alone is not enough.  Utilities already on this path are discovering that the capabilities and flexibility of the billing and customer care system have become as important as the technology at the metering end.  

The billing system of old may have had embedded CRM. Now however, the emphasis is changing. Think instead of a customer interaction platform with embedded billing - aggregating consumption data for display online in customer portals or mobile devices, managing the sending of SMS or emails to households with probable leaks, and implementing strategies for dealing with overuse offenders. 

But this is not the end of the journey to better water management, only the beginning. The way we buy and use water will change, again and again.  There will be new innovative tariffs, numerous local water reforms, more sophisticated communication networks and smarter water saving appliances.   And despite current cost concerns, the smart water grid is on its way. Estimates from Pike Research (July 2010) suggest that smart or smart enabled water meters could ultimately account for 31% of all new water meter shipments. (http://www.pikeresearch.com/newsroom/installed-base-of-smart-water-meters-to-surpass-31-million-by-2016)

PUT THE CUSTOMER AT CENTRE OF YOUR STRATEGY

The lessons being learned from the smart electricity grid rollouts globally also suggest that new metering infrastructure, whether it is data logger or an interval meter based technology, cannot be deployed in isolation.  Early investment in smart grid ready back office platforms is equally as critical. Opting for highly configurable open systems that leverage configurable workflows and SOA will protect that investment through the inevitable shakeout of standards and technologies. Implementing a system that also places customers at the centre of evolving water management strategies can only reap further rewards.

While much of the rest of the world may have been slow to wake up to the true value of water, Australian based utilities have long been ahead of the pack in smart water management. With the tools now available to engage every consumer in improving water sustainability, Australian water management is set to get a whole lot smarter still.