PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency, is rolling out the first phase of a Smart Water Meter Program in Singapore, which will see the installation of 300,000 smart water meters in new and existing residential, commercial and industrial premises by 2023. To kick-start the rollout, PUB called a tender on 12 April to appoint an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Specialist to evaluate and advise on meter devices and technology, communications protocol and provide insights for enhancing operational efficiency and water savings.
Later PUB will call for a tender for the installation of around 300,000 smart water meters in 1Q 2020. The first smart water meters will be installed by early 2021. PUB will review the first phase rollout, build up its capabilities and expertise, and take into account advances in technology before implementing AMI for the rest of Singapore.
The aim of this initiative is to encourage behavioral change towards water conservation, optimize water demand management, and achieve greater operational efficiencies. PUB is also exploring opportunities with other agencies on using these readily available data to improve public services. Currently, there are around 1.6 million water meters at domestic and non-domestic premises across Singapore and they are read manually once every two months. Customers are billed every month, with their water consumption estimated every alternate month. With smart water meters, water consumption will be read automatically several times a day, and transmitted accurately and remotely back to PUB on a daily basis. Customers will have ready access to their daily water usage data through a mobile application or online portal. They will also receive high usage notifications and leak alerts promptly in future. With these alerts, they can fix the leak quickly to reduce water loss and save money. This helps to empower customers to be more water-efficient and manage their usage.
PUB conducted two pilot trials in Punggol and Yuhua in 2016 and 2018 respectively which yielded successful results. A total of 800 households reported an average of 5% in water savings with early leak detection and adoption of water saving habits. The Institute of Water Policy conducted a separate study in 2016 on 1,000 households in the Ang Mo Kio area on the effects of greater awareness of water consumption on consumers’ behavior. The study found that direct messaging to consumers resulted in an average reduction of 4.9 liters of water per capita per day, which is close to half of the water saving target to lower per capita usage from 141 liters to the target 130 liters by 2030.
(Sources: PUB Singapore; Straits Times)