Old fashioned water meters don't cut it anymore
Photo by Steve Snodgrass
The saying goes, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Knowing this, and knowing that we have a water crisis on our hands, why do we not have a structure in place for monitoring our water consumption?
We're ticking along at developing tools and infrastructure for smart electricity management - being able to see our consumption and pricing for electricity in real time so that we can minimize how much energy we use over all, and how much we consume during peak times. Those very same tools can, and are, being fitted to our water infrastructure. It's called the smart water grid, and more companies are recognizing not only the market opportunity but also the global imperative for adopting new technologies to monitor and conserve water.
What is a smart water grid?
Traditional water meters are read only every few months. A smart meter would connect your home to your utility and record water use data on an hourly basis or even more frequently, creating a real-time dialogue so that you as a user can get immediate feedback on how much water you're using, where you're using it, and how much money you're spending on water.
But the smart water grid is also about intelligent management of water across the board - not just in homes but also water sources, water treatment plants, and the distribution networks. Check out some of the technologies coming from IBM that would be incorporated into a smart water grid:
How does a smart water metering help us save water?
As laid out in a report titled Global Smart Water Meters Market 2008-2012, the benefits of implementing smart water meters are huge - from faster, more efficient meter reading (the meter readers won't even have to exit their vehicles to be able to take an electronic reading of the meter), theft and leak detection, remote monitoring, real-time pricing (which means cheaper water during off-peak times), and changing usage patterns toward conservation.
Dr. Peter Gleick, an expert in water, states, "Every single water user -- residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural -- should have an accurate water meter. And every single user should pay for each gallon of water use, preferably with the price rising with the volume. Again, the fact that this is not the case stuns my water colleagues from other places. And it should. It is an outrage in a place [namely, California] where water is scarce, contested, and still used so wastefully that water use should not be accurately measured and charged... People without meters can use, and waste, as much water as they want and no one takes them to task. It is the tragedy of the commons, writ large."
He notes that by using smart metering, cities can save big. For example, Toronto Hydro expects to save $33 million on meter readers and collect as much as $24 million that it loses from inaccurate billing when it installs a new smart water metering system.
The New York Times reported on a trial in Palm Desert, CA of adding water metering to smart grid projects:
The participants were given so-called "smart water meters" that recorded their water usage at 15-minute intervals. Crucially, the meters also enabled participants to see how much water they were using — information that is unavailable to most households.
What companies are part of creating a smart water grid?
Thankfully, many companies are taking note of the business opportunity. And it is a big opportunity. According to TechNavio, the market for smart water meters is forecast to reach $508.1 million in 2012, up from $244.0 million in 2008. And smart water technologies is estimated to be a $16.3 billion dollar industry by 2020.
IBM is a big advocate for smart water metering, primarily because the company recognizes the gap in the marketplace. They aren't the only ones, however. Siemens and Oracle - two other big hitters in the software market - also are talking more and more about smart ways to manage water infrastructure. Other companies include TaKaDu, i2o, and AUG Signals are all working on hardware and software solutions for a smart water grid. These are just a handful of examples. As more companies recognize the business opportunity for better water management from software interfaces to sensors to metering technology, we'll see as many start-ups for smart water as we are seeing for smart electricity.
When will we have a smart water grid?
"There's a belief today that water is becoming a critical issue for the nation," Guerry Waters, vice president for industry strategy at Oracle Utilities told the New York Times. "It's a growing issue we're going to have to deal with, not unlike the issues driving the electric industry."
Fortunately, some areas are making headway. California has implemented a law that requires cities to cut water consumption by 20% by 2020. A smart water grid and water meters will go a long way in helping to make that reduction. Cities are evaluating how and where to implement smart water metering to conserve the precious resource and because municipalities are quickly running out of time to make changes, they'll be apt to test out new technologies as they roll out.
For smart meters to solve the water crisis, we're depending upon utilities to recognize how important a smart water grid is to water conservation, the water managers to push for the new technology, and for consumers to demand it as a way to save water, save money, and save the planet.
