One of the misconceptions of "smart grid technology" is that it is all about the electric meter; it is not. Energy is the driver and leads the discussion around the industry and it is important in terms of costs. However the real opportunities to gain efficiencies are with water utilities.
It's hard to see the benefit of managing a smart water system when especially in the northwest water is both plentiful and relatively inexpensive. But consider this; worldwide forty percent of the world's population does not have access to clean tap water. Taking water from streams and wells, cleaning, treating, and transporting to the end user is a capital intensive. In terms of electricity it takes a lot of energy to pump all the water a utility processes, in fact it may be the single largest monthly expense for a water utility. All of the costs to bring clean safe water into your home and places of business are not being recovered by water utilities. Worldwide non-revenue water production, water lost in the system, amounts to thirty-four percent of total production. For every one hundred gallons of water processed potentially thirty-four gallons are never bought and paid for. Just in terms of energy used to produce that percentage of losses accounts for 5.5 million tons of CO2 emissions daily worldwide.
Losses included unbilled authorized use, apparent losses from theft and meter inaccuracies, and real losses from leaks in transmission lines, water mains, and service leaks. Within the US and right here at home water systems face the same issues as do roads, bridges, schools, and power systems; aging infrastructure. Smart grid technology can help water utilities address the issues they face by identifying where the losses are and to what degree. This allows managers to make more informed decisions about where they need to focus their limited resources and how they should budget in upcoming years. They can also use the technology to avoid property damage caused by leaks that turn into breaks.
Customers benefit directly from improved efficiencies through equitable cost sharing, lower operating costs, and access to data monitoring their own use including in-home leak detection. As each utility adopts this technology they help lower costs of the technology, reduce losses, and improve the world we live in. Water is not a commodity produced for customer production, it is a natural resource essential to life, something we should not waste.
