Cutting consumption with Thames Water

During Covid-19, employees were required to leave their workplaces in London and work from home. The result was that whilst business water usage in London decreased, the demand for domestic properties increased elsewhere – in areas where water supplies were scarcer.

On top of relocating populations, Thames Water knew that there needed to be a wider conversation with customers around the topic of water use. While the population of the South East of England is expected to continue growing, customers still view water as a commodity that’s not only affordable, but also abundant. This mindset means high levels of wastage that Thames Water needed to curb going forward.

When the time came for Thames Water’s Head of Smart Water Metering Strategy, Richard Channell, to lead the smart water meter revolution at Thames Water, he needed to analyse the marketplace for the best solutions.

Arqiva had been working in collaboration with Sensus who have deployed their solution widely across North America, and both Richard and the our teams knew that there was an opportunity to adapt the solution to make to work in the UK. With proven technology and unmatched expertise, it became clear that Richard’s decision would be an easy one.

To help Thames Water meet its objectives, we provided a managed smart water metering service. This meant procuring the AMI smart meters then implementing the communications infrastructure that would capture all of the meter reads in the system. Operating a borough-by-borough rollout, we systematically worked east to west across London, to not only ensure an efficient rollout, but also to maximise coverage.

With the meters online, we then delivered reads to Thames Water in 24-hour intervals in the form of data batch files. Taking the data provided by Arqiva, Thames Water calculated how much water they are supplying to an area, subtracted the accurate usage information, and thereby identified network leakage rates.

Today the company is data-centric, with many stakeholders within the business relying on the data to make informed decisions.

Thames Water recognised that knowledge is power when it comes to tackling customer side leaks and wasteful water use in the home. Not only has smart meter data supported the company’s leakage goals and targets, but it has also helped customers make informed decision about water use at home.

So far, Thames Water has seen a 13% reduction in water consumption amongst customers with a smart meter. With water saving devices and advice provided by Thames Water, customers who are experiencing high consumption see a 10% reduction in wastage.

In addition, the company is now looking at different sensing equipment and pressure monitoring solutions to add to the network, and how these can be combined with the smart metering data to transform their leakage reduction.

Over the next 10 years, Thames Water is planning to install 2 million additional meters in order to achieve their goal for all meterable properties to have a smart meter.