Page 163 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Executive Summary

Figure 3  the flow of information of the SmartH2O platform (from Smart Metering, Water Pricing and
Social Media to Stimulate Residential Water Efficiency: Opportunities for the SmartH2O Project

2.2 Implementation

The SmartH2O platform will be deployed as two case studies, by the two water utilities, Thames Water (UK),
Società Elettrica Sopracenerina (CH) and EMIVASA (ES), which are partners of the project.
Thames Water, the largest UK water utility, has installed Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) equipment to
collect frequent meter readings (15 min intervals) from all connections within the District Metered Area
(DMA) with the aim of obtaining an accurate water balance as well as confirming business case benefits of a
large scale roll out. This experiment covers 5 DMAs: 2 in London, 2 in Reading and 1 in Swindon with a total
of 5,000 properties and 2,500 meters installed. Two different fixed network technologies have been used:
advanced fixed network supplied by Arqiva/Sensus and a conventional fixed network supplied by
Vennsys/HomeRider.

Società Elettrica Sopracenerina (SES) is a power utility based in Locarno, which installed 400 smart meters in
selected locations in the Locarno region.

EMIVASA is leading the implementation of smart metering in Valencia. In fact, Valencia will be, by the end of
2015, the first large city in Europe fully equipped with smart metering, with more than 430’000 smart meters
from 6 different manufacturers connected in fixed network and providing near-real time data to data centres.
Moreover, EMIVASA is already capable of integrating data from smart metering into the Water Distribution
Network management systems and already provides real time information to its customers.
With the purpose of achieving the economic objectives of the project, i.e to save water by dynamic water
pricing and to increase efficiency of business operations of water companies, the SmartH2O project
measured a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). Concerning the first objective, the measured KPIs were
the amount of water saved per capita per period and the combined effect of dynamic water pricing and user
awareness. As water saving could be the consequence of increased awareness. Regarding the second
objective, the KPIs were: a) peak-period reduction of water consumption: measured by comparing the
historical data of peak water consumption in the two case studies with the data monitored after the
introduction of SmartH2O; b) energy required for pumping water: another indicator that can indicate
considerable savings in costs for the water utility; c) reduction in CO2 emissions: an indicator strictly
connected to energy savings, and finally d) investments avoided: it is the total amount of money that has not
been spent over a given period thanks to reduction in water consumption.

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