South East Water continue to drive innovation at scale. It received two prestigious IoT awards for its groundbreaking digital transformation program building a sophisticated digital and customer network across Melbourne’s southeast.
IoT Alliance Australia granted the IoT Smart Places & Infrastructure Award to South East Water. The awards recognised South East Water for its innovative use of Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Their technology reduces customer bills, prevents water wastage, monitors sewer spills and manages water pressure and pump controls.
South East Water was also the recipient of the prestigious Interoperability Award. This award recognises a system or product’s capability to communicate, share data and work with other systems or products.
As organisations cannot nominate for this award, the judging panel put forward outstanding entries from other categories to recognise their achievements in this area.
South East Water General Manager Digital Utility, Andrew Forster-Knight, said the IoT Alliance Australia awards reflected the water organisation’s innovation and demonstrated the exciting work happening in the water industry.
“We’re honoured to see our digital utility projects recognised for our work to transform our business and protect our water supply for generations to come. The water industry is embarking upon a significant period of transformation as we digitise our network and see the benefits of a connected network.”
Digital utility program reaps rewards
South East Water’s IoT network of sensors uses cloud-based storage technology. There are nearly 5 million data points collected daily and used for insights, workflows and process automation.
The IoT technology has already produced tangible results in the digital metering program. The program has saved an estimated $2m in customer charges and 0.5 GL of water. So far, almost 100,000 endpoints have been established, serving a wide range of business needs.
Andrew said the revolutionary program is already bringing many benefits to the customers, community and the environment.
“We know water scarcity and climate change impacts increase the need to manage and use water efficiently. At the same time, customers and communities expect to be kept informed of their real-time water usage.
“Our technology provides an opportunity to help address these challenges. We can continue to provide the best possible customer experience while saving water and money,” he said.
South East Water was also a finalist in the ‘IoT for Good’ category. Nominated projects had to fulfil at least one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which South East Water continues to support.
Many elements of the digital transformation program undoubtedly improve customer experience. South East Water remains committed to minimising waste and reducing its footprint to help ease pressure on precious drinking water supplies.
South East Water’s leak detection program is part of the digital transformation initiative. It was recognised by the Australian Water Association at the Ozwater’23 conference.
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