There is good news and bad news. The bad news is on average, 37% of South Africa’s water is lost before it gets to users as a result of leaks. The good news? Vodacom Business and Messanine detailed a partnership on how the companies are working together to address the problem. 

Increasingly, municipalities and other utility service providers are looking to innovative end-to-end connected solutions that enable utility operations like water and electricity to run more efficiently, reliably, safely, and cost-effectively. In a water-scarce country where water conservation is critical, it is important for water utilities to tackle non-revenue water (NRW), which is water that is lost before it ever reaches the customer.

Smart meters help to monitor water use and water supply to minimise wastage. Aiming to address this situation,  Vodacom Business and Mezzanine partered together to install 200 more smart meters in Matlosana Municipality to help save costs and water by using their Smart Asset Management Solution.

This modem-driven, end-to-end software solution helps customers to implement advanced state-of-the-art analytics, revenue assurance and protection, and smart pre-payment to improve utilities’ operational performance.

In just four days, Vodacom Business, together with Mezzanine, EMS Solutions, and Honeywell Smart Energy, installed over 200 Narrowband-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) AMR water sensors in the city of Matlosana in the North West province. Thanks to these smart meters, customers can manage their water consumption more accurately.

With no power source available from water meters, the NB-IoT modem has a long battery life and deep signal penetration, which helps in actively monitoring service delivery points that are not easily attainable with other communications technologies.

According to Vodacom, these benefits make it an ideal solution for Africa today. With approximately 1 000 activated base stations in Gauteng, the Vodacom Business NB-IoT data model allows for developing digital dashboards that provide reporting and data-driven event notification of the collected data. This data provides active monitoring of key parameters of critical and high-cost assets in near real-time.

“Vodacom Business, together with its partners, is committed to providing benefits to its utility customers by rolling out NB-IoT solutions across the African continent, helping to save water and costs for both municipalities and consumers,” commented Peter Malebye, Managing Executive for Vodacom Business IoT Africa.

The pilot project in the City of Matlosana is specifically looking at the water use case for accurate metering of bulk meters and supply points, which are typically located in non-powered underground chambers. “This helps utility managers to get an accurate view of the water supply network through the digital Asset Management Solution, by balancing the system and detecting losses in real-time,” he concluded.