Background
Existing Estates typically have a status with regard to their cold water utilities as detailed below, this is a fairly normal and conventional solution:
- The site’s cold-water service is provided by a municipal bulk supply.
- Individual dwellings are billed proportionately if no water meter is fitted or are individually metered through manual reading.
- If proportional billing is used, the amount billed is either based on dwelling allotment size or as a straight average of the total usage.
- The manual meter readings are done infrequently.
What are the problems?
Some of the issues with the current status are:
- Billing based on allotment, this is irrespective of actual water usage and result is low usage tenants subsidising the heavy usage tenants.
- Billing based on allotment does not engender a culture of water saving, water conservation is becoming an ever more pressing issue for all.
- Manual meter readings are infrequent and can result in major customer dissatisfaction.
- Manual meter reading is infrequent and can result in financial stress due to unforeseen excessive water usage as a result of a leak or some other factor.
- Manual meter reading are error prone, resulting in costly and time consuming additional administrative tasks being required.
- Billing errors create a sense of mistrust in the management of the Estate or Service provider, resulting in customer complaints and dissatisfaction.
What is the Solution?
The solution to the above problems can be found in the use of Smart Metering solution that integrates the estate’s utility management. What such a solution consists of and the benefits associated with such a solution are detailed below.
The components of a Smart Metering solution are made up of the following:
- A radio module that connects to the meter or a meter with integrated radio. The radio collects the usage information and transmits the information back to a Gateway.
- The Gateway collects the information transmitted by the radios that are within the site.
- The Gateway transferred the collected information back to a utility management software package, the communication is normally via GSM.
- The utility management software can either be hosted in the cloud or on dedicated computer servers and provides access to all the relevant information to the body corporates/property administrators and owners/tenants/residents
What are the Benefits?
The benefits of a Smart metering solution together with an Advanced Utility Management solution includes the following:
- Significantly reduced in labour and administrative costs associated with utility management and billing.
- The solution ensures fewer customer queries and greater customer satisfaction, through the easy access to utility usage information by the customer.
- The solution guarantees fair and equitable billing based on actual usage rather than estimated or apportioned usage.
- The risk of bad debt to the body corporate or bill shocks to the customer are minimise through weekly or monthly billing. Risks associated with quarterly meter reading and estimated billing are avoided. Meters are read daily, therefor usage and outstanding amounts are always current.
- Billing periods that are better suited to the needs of the body corporates/property administrators and owners/tenants/residents can be setup, weekly, biweekly, monthly or quarterly billing cycles are possible.
- This type of Solution can report on leaks and bursts that occur, normally within 24 to 48 hours. This includes leaks within the dwellings.
- Leak and burst detection ensuring minimal financial loss to the customer, both due to the excessive water usage and the resultant water damage.
- If required the solution can normally be easily integration into existing accounting Estate management system, integrated with 3rd parties for revenue collection on behalf of the body corporate and be account to the body corporate for this.
- Solution can provide a fair and equitable means for revenue collection for system maintenance or replacement.
- If the solution is hosted in the cloud then the advantages of secure and easily accessible usage data storage.
What are the features available?
The features of an Advanced Utility Management solution available to the body corporates and or property administrators would include the following:
- A secure login with 24/7/365 access from anywhere in the world.
- Secure data storage and data backup for an extended period of several years.
- Real-time and historic billing information for all units on demand, downloaded as a .CSV file.
- Real-time and historic usage information for entire Estate or site, including meter reading, usage summary tables, usage graphs, comparative graphs and profiles.
- Real-time and historic usage information for each unit, including meter reading, usage graphs and profiles.
- Tracking of unaccounted for water, water under/over recovery report for Estate/Building based on verification with incoming municipal meter reading.
- The provision for email based notifications.
- The tracking of exceptions, such as no, low or high usages.
Extended features
Feature that are not crucial in themselves to ensure the successful deployment of an estate utility managment solution, however that provide valuable information and a much more inclusive experience for the owners/tenants/residents, includes a secure login per owners/tenants/residents via the web to the utility management software, providing the owners/tenants/residents with the following services:
- The tenants current meter reading.
- The tenats current account details.
- The tenants current utility usage information and the cost thereof.
- The tenants historic billing information and meter readings.
A further extention to the above is a secure login per owners/tenants/residents for direct access via Smart Mobile Phone application that provide:
- Notifications of potential leaks and or potential bursts.
- Notifications based on customer set usage limits.
- Access to provisional bill based on current up to date usage
- Graphical representations of current and historic usage.