Business Opportunities Amidst Water Crisis in South Africa

Published on by in Business

Business Opportunities Amidst Water Crisis in South Africa

As the water crisis intensifies‚ South African companies are working furiously to meet demand for smart water restrictors.

Durban-based Utility Systems‚ which has supplied the Cape Town municipality with about 300‚000 devices over the last 10 years‚ is now producing 35‚000 water management devices a month.

gqHUxyc.jpg
Representative image, Source: Pixabay

The company‚ which developed their first device in a garage‚ has close to 1.4-million of the devices connected around the world‚ including parts of Africa‚ South America‚ the Middle East‚ the Far East and New Zealand.

The water management device is a remote communicating electronic water control valve. The smart meter allows water flow limitation and is able to provide prepaid water metering‚ automated meter reading and leaks and tamper detection.

Managing director Peter Rodseth quit his job as a lawyer to invest in the device proposed in the mid-1990s by a client.

"I liked the idea‚ invested some money and commercialised it. It was the first prepaid water system in the world. Initially it was used as a prepaid system‚ but that business was sold off in 1999. I then started this business in 2001. Initially prepaid was not widely used here but in the last 10 years it has taken off. The whole world is moving towards smart meters. Water is a huge focus globally‚" said Rodseth.

"We supply about 60 municipalities in South Africa. Cape Town is our biggest customer‚ with Durban not far behind. We are building 35‚000 devices a month and want to get to 100‚000 capacity to meet the growing orders‚" he said.

Read full article: Times Live

Media

Taxonomy