England Launching Experiment to Cut Water Consumption

England is launching an experiment to see if competition can get people to use water more wisely 

In 2017, consumers and businesses will have the opportunity to buy water and wastewater services from qualifying providers rather than being locked into their local municipal utility. Like energy deregulation, the overall idea is to encourage innovation and new business models that will lower prices for consumers and increase profits for providers at the same time. Imagine demand response services for water, incentive payments for time-shifting or even “shower as a service” contracts for lowering the capital costs of retrofitting homes or hotels.

Water conservation remains one of the thorniest challenges in natural resources. On one hand, events like the California drought have highlighted the urgent need for technology and/or services for improving water management and consumption.

And forget expensive fixes like desalination for a moment—huge gains can be achieved through far simpler solutions like efficient fixtures, leak monitoring and Big Data. The World Bank Estimates that 8.6 trillion gallons a year gets lost through leaks, enough to fill the Hoover Dam. Israel’s TaKaDu is working with Bilbao, Spain and a number of other cities to leverage sensor data to pinpoint leaks and reduce repair costs.

Pumping and delivering water also consumes a tremendous amount of energy. Energy typically accounts for approximately 1/3 of the operating expenses of a municipal water agency, says Gary Wong, principal for global water industry at OSIsoft, which develops software for analyzing and leveraging multiple real-time, real-world data streams. Some water agencies are leveraging data to lower peak power prices or balance reservoir levels to prevent storm overflows.

Spending on water technology is expected to rise $25 billion by 2018, a 67% increase from the $15 billion spent in 2010, according to Global Water Intelligence.

Source: Forbes

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Taxonomy

• Water Supply
• Water Management
• Consumption