Yorkshire Water targets smart water metering for new housing

Yorkshire Water aims to drive leakage and consumption reductions with an advanced water metering infrastructure.

In a 20-year partnership Yorkshire Water will be supplied with water meters and data collection by the IoT operator Netmore, while network provider Connexin will provide the network and water meter connectivity.

The two suppliers will leverage LoRaWAN networks, with Netmore supplying Itron water meters and its Cyble 5 devices which enable AMI reading.

The provision of the meters will be up to five years and the provision of data collection by the meters will be up to 15 years, in line with the assets’ expected lifetime.

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“We are thrilled to start the journey of advanced customer metering – a really strategic way to reduce leakage, improve our services and help customers save money on their bills,” says Adam Smith, manager of smart networks and metering transformation at Yorkshire Water.

Yorkshire Water has targets to improve water efficiency including reducing the per capita consumption by 9% by 2025 and reducing the leakage by 50% by 2050.

Almost a third of leaks are found on the pipe leading up to the customer boundary. With the advanced metering the water company should be able to identify pipes that have continuous flow and may have a leak, so that these can be targeted and issues fixed more quickly.

Yorkshire Water is also working on a solution that will give customers access to an insights platform that will tell them about their usage, enabling them to make more informed decisions on how they use water.

Smart meters will be installed on all new housing developments as well as in wider meter exchange and install programmes across the supply area, which covers most of Yorkshire and part of Derbyshire.