Landis+Gyr appoints WaterGroup
14/12/2022
Australia-based WaterGroup has signed a reseller agreement with energy management solutions provider Landis+Gyr for the sale of network-enabled ultrasonic fully integrated smart water meters.
900,000 megalitres of water has been lost in Australia in the last five years, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Australian water storage systems, including the Murray-Darling Basin, continue to remain low, so the water loss issue has become increasingly pertinent.
The Landis+Gyr smart meters will give utilities near real-time data about water use, said Guenter Hauber Davidson, Managing Director of WaterGroup.
“The Landis+Gyr W350 smart water meter is the ideal tool to obtain 24/7 visibility of water use. While everything else is online, the water utilities usually take four annual readings – missing what is going on in between,” Guenter stated.
“Seeing how water is used in near real time allows utilities to address leaks both within their networks and for their customers before millions of litres of drinking water are lost. It also lets them see how their network performs and identify capacity constraints.”
This could enable a more versatile and effective response during future Australian droughts to ensure that enough water is stored, Guenter argued.
The W350 water meter uses an embedded SIM card to wirelessly connect via a narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) connection. It can use an embedded pressure and network leak or vibration sensor.
By working with Landis+Gyr and the water industry to deploy innovative technology solutions like the W350, WaterGroup intends to alleviate the risk of undetected water leaks.
“All we need to do is look towards our European friends to appreciate the increasingly devastating effects of climate change on the reliability of our water supplies. We could be next. The sooner we collect much richer data, the better we are placed to face those challenges without having to resort to draconian water restrictions,” said Guenter.
