Policy Formulation
Due to lack of experience in using these meters at the time of the pilot studies, no policy regarding their use had been previously formulated in most municipalities. As such, the experiences obtained should be used to formulate policies that guide future installations (Ngobeni, 2016).
Procurement
Stricter procurement specifications which combat some of the technical issues experienced in using some of the advanced metering systems should be insisted on. These include SANS 1529 compliance, STS compliance and bi-directional communication,
accommodation of step /multi-tier tariffs, compatibility with municipal billing systems, IP68 resistance of meters and multi-drilled flanges. More durable products with minimal failure rates can consequently be obtained.
Disaster Preparedness
The ability to immediately respond to fire and other medical emergencies is critical to saving of life and property (Pereira, 2009). Alternative water sources for emergency cases where self-disconnecting meters are installed or configuration of these meters to allow for emergency reserves are thus critical to their safe implementation in different areas.
Institutional Capacity
Some advanced meters due to their self-disconnection function place significantly higher demands on the maintenance and operation capacity of the municipality. As such, investment into improvement of the utility’s institutional capacity to operate and maintain these devices prior to their roll out is critical to their success and will also prevent disease outbreaks from the unhealthy coping mechanisms adopted in the absence of water (Ngobeni, 2016). This is particularly important in prepaid metering cases where prepayment raises user expectations of the service delivery.
Plumbing and Retrofitting
As mentioned in some of the case studies above, the water losses due to leakage in low income areas is very high. As a result, retrofitting and leakage repair projects prior to implementation of the advanced metering should be done with use of durable high- quality pipes, meters and fittings encouraged in all aspects of low income water infrastructure upgrades. This will also enable municipalities to more accurately ascertain the impact of advanced metering on consumption without errors due to leakage.
Maintenance and Operations
Meter audits, maintenance of updated meter records, meter chamber and valve inspection and preservation as well as continual field inspections to identify leakages and vandalism should be done to both ease future advanced metering implementation works as well as save the city the losses accrued from damaged meters and unrecorded consumptions (De Beer, 2010).
Where more advanced skill sets are required to operate and maintain the added software and hardware components of the advanced metering system, there is a need to train municipal staff or have maintenance contracts in place to run these systems (Saayman,2016 & Ngobeni, 2016).
Compatibility Issues
Incompatibility was one of the major causes of the increased logistical requirements during AMR project implementation in Epping Industrial area. Innovative systems of meter auditing as well as municipal policies clarifying how future advanced metering installations will be synchronised with existing municipal infrastructure should be
formulated before any future roll outs are carried out (Saayman, 2016). The quality controls, security and privacy issues around the advanced metering information obtained also need to be clarified prior to new implementations.
8.8
Economic Considerations
Financial Analysis
Advanced metering systems require both high capital investment and operating costs. However, the water tariff restrictions that municipalities face mean that their main revenue source to recuperate advanced metering system costs is limited (Saayman, 2016 & De Beer, 2016). A more holistic financial and cost analysis over the entire project lifecycle of these systems which incorporates more than just their direct and short term outcomes should therefore be done before large scale implementation is carried out. An example of this is where existing water meters can be upgraded to AMR systems, and yet the unit costs of some of these additional components for example Meter Interface Units (MIU’s) can vary from R 65 to R650, which eclipses the cost of some conventional meters (Saayman, 2016). Another example of this is that continual monitoring of these systems is often restricted to particular clusters for example in parts of Europe to minimise the increased infrastructure running costs (Saayman, 2016).
Vending Infrastructure
Large scale roll out of proprietary based systems is not feasible for some areas since the risk of being locked or tied to a system that may not work is high and the reinvestment into all new advanced system infrastructure not viable. These proprietary systems should therefore only been piloted on a small and therefore manageable scale in a few areas and any new advanced metering procurements should require STS Compliance for bid consideration (Saayman, 2016).
Legal Considerations
The legality of using some advanced meter records needs to be considered for example where there is a dispute, the physical meter reading is usually sacrosanct as opposed to the AMR reading (Pontia, 2016). The cost implications of this as well as its policy restrictions on the municipality particularly in cases of customer complaints/ bill disputes when using AMR technology should consequently be planned for .
The Chapter below provides the overall conclusions of this dissertation and recommendations for further research.
9 CONCLUSIONS
Advanced metering (AM) technology is being introduced to augment or replace the use of conventional metering in many parts of the world. This is because of the improved functionalities it offers over those of conventional metering; with intelligent networks that assist municipalities to deal with challenges of water scarcity, non-revenue water losses and poor payment for services among others.
While smart networks consisting of these advanced meters are becoming the norm in many developed countries, the situation in South Africa and other developing countries is more complex. Careful consideration should therefore be given to the various technical, social, environmental and economic factors required to successfully implement these advanced metering technologies in developing countries.
This report reviewed 4 case studies in South Africa in the areas of Cape Town, iLembe Municipality and Olievenhoutbosch, Tshwane to better understand how advanced metering technologies have been implemented so far and make a comparative study of advanced metering performance against conventional metering through the use of an evaluation framework.
9.1
Key Conclusions
Advanced metering systems were observed to be substantially more expensive to install, operate and maintain compared to conventional ones. Municipalities should therefore be aware of all the hidden costs in staffing, support infrastructure, repair and replacement of the advanced metering systems prior to their installation.
Advanced metering systems also have significantly higher failure rates than conventional meters due to their increased components whose vulnerability to failure impacts that of the meter. More intensive maintenance operations will be required to ensure that these advanced metering systems function as planned and utilities should equip themselves for this.
In line with the above, municipal personnel responsible for managing the metering schemes should be well trained beforehand to ensure that these metering technologies, most of which are still in early stages of development, can function efficiently.
None of the case studies found that advanced metering could be justified on economic grounds only, and thus other considerations (for example water efficiency and leak detection) should be of higher priority before selecting advanced metering as an option. Due to the higher investment and overall lifecycle costs of advanced metering compared to conventional metering, utilities should avoid looking at advanced metering as a “quick-fix” solution for deep-seated social problems like unwillingness to pay for water services. Setting specific objectives and reviewing all the different options available to meet these objectives should rather be done before advanced metering is conclusively chosen.