Water Meters Go Cellular

Cellular connectivity brings advantages to smart water meters

Smart water metering is beginning to gain traction among a growing number of public utilities. With the mounting strain on local and state water supplies, increased pressures to upgrade water infrastructure, and recent advancements in technology overall, smart water metering is now more appealing to utilities and consumers alike. In fact, cellular-connected smart water meters provide significant benefits for both consumers and utilities. 

Despite recent estimates that smart water meters make up less than 20% of the 100 million water meters deployed in the U.S., smart water metering technology is poised for significant growth. MarketsandMarkets forecasts the smart water management market will be worth more than $12 billion by 2018.

Cellular wireless networks have been used in smart energy metering with great success; however, there have been significant challenges in bringing the application of “smart” metering, or advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), to water systems technology. To succeed, utilities and equipment manufacturers needed to address a variety of cost and technical considerations for power consumption, longevity, scale and security. 

In contrast to other recent technological progressions in the water utility market, such as proprietary radio frequency (RF) mesh networks and other meter advanced reading technologies (AMR) that haven’t always delivered the full value and ROI as promised, today’s standard cellular-enabled water meters offer distinct advantages, including helping to identify and eliminate leaks and inefficiencies earlier, lowering operating costs, and improving water conservation.

Why go cellular?

Modern cellular networks have such broad reach; they nearly cover every inhabited area. This provides a wide network for an effective and efficient two-way remote communications channel between utilities and water meters. Even with newer technology, where utilities collect readings using low-power RF emitters at the meter, technicians still need to walk or drive by each meter to get a reading. Cellular technology allows utilities to acquire meter readings remotely, more frequently, and at a much lower cost. 

Additionally, cellular technology simplifies deployments and improves operational efficiency. In many ways today’s smart meters are plug-and-play, allowing for faster, less complicated and less expensive installations. Cellular deployments also eliminate the need to own and maintain the communications infrastructure. Instead, utilities can use proven, secure, future-proof and ubiquitous cellular networks, letting the mobile network operators worry about maintaining the network, while the utilities focus on their core business. 

Mobile operators and equipment vendors are also making it easier to integrate with back-end management, billing, and remote cloud management systems. These proven, reliable and secure systems mean utilities aren’t tasked with building systems from scratch and can take advantage of proven software and platforms that already support millions of devices, and employ strong encryption, secure connectivity, and secure access mechanisms to keep the network and customer data safe. 

Because of this, smart water meters using cellular technology are beginning to establish a true value proposition across the board. Let’s further explore some additional advantages of a water meter system with cellular-enabled technology.

Improved water resources management

Better measurement allows for increased insight, and the ability to identify patterns can help utilities better detect anomalies and inefficiencies while improving service overall. The benefits of smart water metering are substantial for water management, recapturing lost revenue from leaks and theft, while reducing utility operating costs. And in particular, cellular technology is poised to play a crucial role in the growth of the market as more governments and utilities look for reliable, long-lasting solutions that can be deployed quickly and cost-effectively.

Today, most governments around the world have not yet mandated investment in smart water meters as has been the case with AMI for energy infrastructure. But this is expected to change, for a number of reasons. First, AMI can help utilities reduce non-revenue water (NRW) by allowing them to accurately pinpoint leaks and potential theft. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about 6 billion gallons of water are lost to leaks each year. Worldwide, the World Bank estimates that NRW costs governments and utilities approximately $14 billion annually. 

Source: Intelligent Utility

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Taxonomy

• Technology
• Smart Meters
• Water Utility