Page 287 - Water Loss Control

256 Cha pte r F i f tee n

recover the full cost of service, including the long-term costs, and rightfully expect that
their customers should pay for this service.
Because a portion of the customer population in any community will strive to illegally
obtain water service, utility managers must have in-place programs to detect and contain
the occurrence of unauthorized consumption to economic levels. Ever-improving technol-
ogy gives water utilities outstanding tools to manage supplies and track authorized and
unauthorized consumption. But water utilities must also have appropriate policies and
regulations to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the customer and service pro-
vider. Appropriate regulations should exist to give the water utility enforceable rights to
take action against customers who willfully take water illegally.
Technology and policy are being merged in both the water and energy industries
(electricity, gas) in a number of settings around the world. Merging improved technol-
ogy and policy gives opportunity to improve the balance between providing a popula-
tion access to clean water, the utility’s right to receive fair payment for the service
rendered to customers, and the joint responsibility of all concerned to preserve precious
water resources. In the energy industry, technology has been developed and projects
are starting that include the use of prepayment regulations for utility services. Prepay-
ment requires customers to pay for service prior to receiving the service, unlike the
traditional business model of postpayment that is prevalent throughout most of the
world’s utility industries.
A large-scale energy (gas, electricity) prepayment project is launching in Azerbaijan
in attempt to improve revenue collection so that the utilities can increase their invest-
ment in infrastructure renewal. The prepayment structure is set to launch in the City of
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Ganga in 2008 and features smart card technology linked to banking institutions. The
smart cards feature two way communication capability, carrying credit to the meter and
meter readings back to the utility.
The complexities of managing prepayment structures are being addressed by the
development of “smart meters,” or metering and related infrastructure which includes
the capability to communicate and enact a variety of functions. “The market for smart
meters is estimated at nearly 1.28 billion units worldwide—1 billion of which are out-
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side of the North American market.” Currently, most of this market is projected for the
energy sector, but many of the capabilities being developed for the energy industry
have potential for future use in the water sector. Some of the capabilities being offered
as smart meter technology in the energy sector include: two-way automated meter
reading, multitiered billing, time-of-use and real-time pricing, remote electrical discon-
nect and reconnect, distribution system asset optimization, electricity outage detection
and restoration management, blackout and brownout elimination, revenue protection,
real-time direct load control, power quality management, and tamper detection capa-
bilities. Many of these features could be considered directly, or for parallel functions, in
the water industry.
A prepayment structure for water has been implemented in South Africa by Johan-
nesburg Water in order to address significant problems of unauthorized consumption,
poor revenue collection, strained water resources, and growing populations. The water
supply scheme employed in this structure provides many users with a free basic allot-
ment of water. Once they have consumed this monthly volume, they must have a credit
registered in the prepayment meters to continue to receive water service for the remain-
der of the month. A shutoff feature is included in the program. The program seeks to
improve on the revenue collection of the water utility and better manage supplies. The