Integration key for digital metering

Getting data to flow between systems is a vital component of a digital metering project. Collecting data from the meter and making it available to different systems and stakeholders within the organisation drives efficiency and benefits for the business and community.

“One of the challenges faced by Councils is duplication and incorrect data. With digital metering and integration between systems, we know the data is up to date and accurate,” said Stephen Fernando, Director of Corporate Services at Murray River Council.

In Fernando’s eyes, there is a lot to gain from smart water meters. It’s not just about installing innovative new technology. “It’s important to remember that digital meters are a means to an end. What is important is the data and information and the actions taken from the insights provided by the digital meter data,” he said.

Taking action

Fernando has a deep understanding of digital metering as he worked closely with Taggle on their very first project with Mackay Regional Council over 13 years ago. Mackay achieved great success with that project as there was a clear business case to reduce peak consumption demand and postpone building a new water treatment plant. This was successful, with peak demand reducing 14 per cent, which in turn deferred $100M in capital investment for 13 years and counting.

Fernando learned a valuable lesson from that project: Data can only take you so far. To reap the benefits, stakeholders across the business need to take action and use the data. For this to occur, the data needs to be accessible to those who can use it via integrations to business systems like billing, customer service, customer portals, GIS systems, and hydrological models.

Driven by drought

Murray River Council began its digital water journey in 2020 to improve water security after drought left resources at risk. The council installed 8,500 Taggle digital meters across both the potable and raw water schemes, and residents have access to their data via a customer portal.

Thankfully, the drought ended, and water security is not currently at risk. However, with the system in place, the council is now prepared so that when water supplies are again threatened, actions can be easily taken to manage and reduce consumption and wasted water.

Data integration

In Fernando’s eyes, there is a lot to gain from digital water meters beyond identifying leaks. One of those benefits is the improved efficiency of meter reading and billing processes. With the data flowing smoothly through the system, it eliminates duplication and data ambiguity. Councils can also reduce the cost of physical meter readings, which generally come from contractors or existing staff.

“The other big benefit is accuracy, particularly when the data flows through all the systems,” Fernando said. “It’s why having an integrated workflow is so important.”

Integrating with different business systems can be quite the challenge, as all systems have variables. It’s not quite as easy as plug-and-play. Even software from one provider can vary significantly depending on the version used. Taggle works closely with councils and utilities to get the integration right, and with experience from over 70 projects, this is becoming more and more streamlined with every rollout.

The beautiful thing about Taggle’s council and utility customers is that as they complete their integration projects, they happily share the process and experience with others about to embark on the journey. This knowledge sharing is valuable in creating a smooth and efficient process to integrate between all the different systems. Murray River Council was the first of Taggle’s customers to integrate with TechnologyOne’s cloud-based platform, Ci Anywhere. Those who now follow benefit from the integration created with Murray River Council.

Different stakeholders

Another unseen benefit is how different teams within each organisation begin to work together more and adapt their business processes to the new Digital world. Fernando explains that this should start at the earliest stage of the digital water meter project so all stakeholders are involved.

“The initial discussions when embarking on the digital meter journey tend to focus on technology, but I believe this approach is backward,” he said. “The first discussions should revolve around outcomes, then progress to determining the insights required. Once the insights are clear, the conversation shifts to the necessary data and analysis for obtaining those insights.”

That’s why having cross-functional teams work together on these projects is vital. Having different sections of the organisation work on the project means that each section gets what it needs from it. The billing team will need different things from the customer service team, and the information technology team could have completely different expectations from the maintenance team.

Working together within the Murray River Council has been shown to increase efficiency in its workflow.

“From a billing perspective, we are learning a lot,” Fernando said. “Just having the digital meters to automate the billing process is not enough on its own to justify the cost. It’s why you must look at everything else that comes with the technology.”

Opportunities

One opportunity that arises from these insights is time-of-year billing. Like the time-of-day billing that some electricity providers are rolling out, time-of-year billing would examine how the water industry can better support itself.

“For example, a water utility could charge more for water during droughts or low rainfall periods,” he said. “During summer, there is always a higher demand for water resources, which strains resources at water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants, pipes, and other aspects of the network. On the other hand, during rainy seasons, nobody is requesting too much water. Consequently, lower prices could be charged to reflect that.”

Next steps

Having seen the rollout of smart water meters with Mackay Regional Council, Fernando now leads the project at the Murray River Council. Currently, the system is used mostly for billing and account management. The plan is to focus more on leak management services and reducing Non-Revenue Water (NRW).

“At the moment, we do not have much knowledge about the leaks in the network,” he said. “We need to develop policies for this, especially those concerning responsibility for leaks and sign-ups to the customer portal.”

“The council also recently received a grant to develop district-metered areas (DMAs), so we plan to work with Taggle to set them up to manage our network leaks and reduce non-revenue water.”

For more information, visit https://taggle.com/