May 4, 2017 - Smart water metering provides utilities with a large amount of data and the knowledge needed to stay informed about the distribution network. For Ghana, the investment in this technology will bring many advantages for the consumers, but also have a significant positive impact on preserving the country’s water resources in general. Currently, non-revenue water makes up more than half of Ghana’s total water consumption. This is both a consequence of many consumers not having a water meter installed and unknown leaks in the pipes between the consumers and the utility resulting in water waste.
The project is the first of its kind ever carried out in Ghana, and the expectations for the new metering solution are great as well. “Non-revenue water make up 50% of our water consumption. It is a number we would very much like to reduce by 5% each year until reaching 20-25%. We believe this to be possible through the means of intelligent metering,” says Michael Botse-Baidoo, Chief Manager Project Planning and Development at Ghana Water.
The intelligent meters will not only enable utilities to measure the consumers’ water consumption precisely but also to detect and locate leaks in the pipes. Meters supporting remote reading are set to make the reading process much more convenient for both consumers and utilities as it will replace manual reading of the meters. Besides operational efficiency, remote reading will be able to give the utility many possibilities with the data they can collect from the remote read meters.
“In many ways, this investment will help us raise the bar for water metering in Ghana. We see several possibilities for operational efficiency in terms of more precise data and a better insight into our network, which will also increase our revenue generation. The smart meters will prove to be a good long-term investment due to their robustness, accuracy and durability,” says Frederick Christian Lokko, Managing Director at Ghana Water.
The intelligent meters will be supplied by the Danish company Kamstrup. For Kamstrup, the investment from Ghana Water represents the first water meter agreement in west Africa and the company sees great potential for intelligent water meterering in Africa in general.
“We expect the market to grow rapidly within the next 3 -5 years and are following the development in Africa closely,” says Per Trøjbo, Senior Vice President at Kamstrup. “And with the promising project in Ghana, we see this as the beginning of an African adventure.”
Besides the agreement with Ghana Water, Kamstrup has already established collaborations with other partners and clients in the energy industry of Ghana and has currently supplied more than 100,000 electricity meters for the Electricity Company of Ghana among others.