Water & Energy Meters availability

Are there any integrated smart water & energy meters already on the market or in development? 

Has anyone used the smart water and energy meters? Please share your experience about their performance.

Taxonomy

• Meter Optimisation
• Smart Meters
• Metering
• Meter Data Collection
• Meters
• Smart Meters
• Smart Metering (AMI)

12 Answers

1. Dear George,

   The smart water metering market emerged in the 2000s as water utilities responded to global trends of using detailed and near real time data and analytics to deliver more predictive and proactive services.The integration of Smart Water Management helps enterprises’ systems monitor, analyze, and control & manage water network related data from smart water meters. The solutions like Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Meter Data Management (MDM) already have high global acceptance in the utility industry; however, new and emerging solutions such as network monitoring and smart irrigation are expected to witness high growth rate in the future. The Smart Water Management market is expected to grow at a high rate during the forecast period. More and more utilities are integrating advanced ICT solutions into their operations. And with smart water metering helping to identify and reduce leakages and non-revenue water.

   A  smart meter  is an electronic device that records consumption of electric energy in intervals of an hour or less and communicates that information at least daily back to the utility  for monitoring and billing. Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system. Unlike home energy monitors, smart meters can gather data for remote reporting. Such an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) differs from traditional automatic meter reading (AMR) in that it enables two-way communications with the meter. A smart meter is a new kind of gas and electricity meter that can digitally send meter readings to your energy supplier. This can ensure more accurate energy bills.

    

2. This is a very rapidly changing field, especially with the advent of IoT type technologies such as Sigfox, LoRaWAN and soon NB IoT. I'd be very cautious with large scale roll outs unless you have flexibility to easily upgrade at least firmware, better even, hardware, in like the electronics and comms part.

   Why not start with a small pilot to test all aspects (comms, data flow. connectivity, interoperability, reliability, etc) of these new technologies using piggyback solutions. We are about to install the first Sigfox and LoRaWAN based smart water meters in Australia, and would happy to share our experience.

   Can I also challenge you with a different thought? Since the Majority of at least the smart water meter benefits come from better understanding the network, not the avoided manual meter reading costs, why not smart meter just 10% of your customers for 80% of the benefits at 20% of the cost? See our attached white paper. 

3. Hello, George,

   There are probably various smart water meter manufacturers for your reference, such as Itron and Sensus in Europen countries.

   Before fix the smart meter suppliers or manufacturers, would you like to consider AMI in advance?  We really need AMI to turn smart meter into a smart distribution system. And AMI gives utilities and customers the data such as usage pattern,events and problems, and sometimes remote control. 

   BR,

    

   Wu Hao

    

4. DC Water announced that they are replacing about 90,000 smart meters, after about 10 years average.  The meters  may be smart but they are apparently not very robust.

5. Looks like there's lots of ideas here already. Another one you could look at is CNI guard which aims to integrate smart monitoring of different utilities in one underground device.

6. Hi George, it would be good to understand what your application and specification is to determine the most suitable solution.

   I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'integrated smart water @ energy meters'? Is this the connectivity of water, electricity and gas meters into 1 AMR/AMI Network?

   Best Regards

   Jörg

7. Hi George, if you are looking for a solution on European Market, we have just started exporting our smart water meter & leak detection system from the Czech Republic. We have great references from domestic market so we have decided to push it abroad as well. I can provide you with the references and performance data. Please PM me, if you are interested in hearing more.

   Best,

   Jakub

8. Hi George, it would be worth a conversation to find out what your objective is.  I am hoping to roll out some smart metering across Northumbria Water area.

9. Washington DC Water successfully  installed smart meters beginning around 2001. They report by remote sensing every 15 minutes, and can detect and notify for unusual usage. So, in-house losses can be detected, but of course they do not help with distribution system losses, which is more significant. They are beginning to fail and are now being replaced with improved meters.

10. We  have been using smart water meters since 2007. I can go through a list of the good, the bad and the absolutely stay away from.  It would not be appropriate to mention the later on this platform. Send me a message or email me and I can give you a rundown on the meters we have tried. However, the investment in smart meters was one of the best measures to fighting water loss we have made. Our water loss stays between 1% and 3%.

    2 Comments

    1. Hi Johnny

       When you say "our water loss stays between 1% and 3%" is this your Real Losses or total NRW?

       1-3% is an enviable result so I'd be keen to know what you think are the main ways to achieve such success.

       Thanks

       Stuart

    2. Hi Johnny, Many thanks for the reply and I would be very grateful to make contact outside of this platform as i would like to be able get an idea of different new to market or in development products for potentially trialling as part of an 8 yr 'Green Village' residential property development that I am involved with. 

11. Hi George, are you looking for residential, industrial or water utilities?

    1 Comment

    1. Hi Albert, Many thanks for the reply. I am looking for residential applications as part of a housing development I am working on. The land agent want to look at various new to market or in development products that could be trialled in the different phases of housing development and potentially in some 'concept' homes. 

        

12. Hi George, you can find these meters in Elster, Sensus, Badger for name fews for residential & commercial users in municipal applications.