Home-grown technology forges a unique partnership between Victorian utilities
by James Greene
South East Water Managing Director Lara Olsen, Barwon Water Managing Director Shaun Cumming
and Iota Chief Executive Officer Daniel Sullivan.
Barwon Water has teamed up with Iota to solve the issues facing the Victorian water sector. How? New technology developed in the state by Iota’s enterprise IoT platform Lentic®. The plan? To expand Barwon Water’s existing digital meter rollout following successful trials in Apollo Bay and Birregurra.
The plan
The Apollo Bay trial received an installation of 300 digital meters, all with integrated vibration sensors designed to find and fix network leaks which until then, had not been detected from existing prior technology.
An estimated 74 million litres may potentially be saved per year across the Apollo Bay system with the roll out of enhanced technology.
Barwon Water Managing Director Shaun Cumming said Barwon Water was excited to be collaborating with Iota to adopt technology and learnings from South East Water.
“Greater collaboration and knowledge sharing between water utilities leads to better outcomes for everyone," he said.
“By partnering with Iota and taking learnings from South East Water’s approach, we aim to minimise the potential technological risks and enhance knowledge and resource capability across the sector to deliver the best outcomes for our customers and environment.“
With the successful trial now complete, Barwon Water is looking to further expand the digital meter rollout.
The expansion
The first stage of the rollout will involve building capability and expanding deployments to specific areas in Barwon Water’s network, targeting leak reduction and water savings. Iota’s enterprise IoT platform Lentic® will be deployed to enable the effective rollout of the digital meters at scale, optimising device management and streamlining management of alarms.
The second stage will see a broader roll out to customers across Barwon Water’s service region, a population of 370,000+ people. The expected annual savings in this second stage of the program will see approximately 1,200 million litres (or 1.2 billion litres)
The program is designed to detect leaks within the Barwon Water network and forms a key part of Barwon Water’s long-term digital transformation and water saving strategies. Customers will save money and water will become more sustainable with these measures in place.
The results
Barwon Water has undertaken significant work in this area, with its flagship Birregurra Sustainable Communities – Water project showing what’s possible with an installation of 400 digital meters and community driven initiatives. The result? 38 million litres of water have been saved, 90 leaks have been identified and repaired and $81,000 has been slashes off customer bills since the establishment of the plan in 2020.
South East Water Managing Director and Iota Director Lara Olsen said: “We congratulate Iota and Barwon Water on their partnership and the benefits smart meters will bring to customers, community and the environment”.
