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Narrabri Shire Council, along with most of Australia, is caught in the grips of the worst drought the country has seen since the devastating millennium drought. Saving water is a top priority, and every drop is precious when providing a reliable drinking water supply.

Narrabri has been taking measures to reduce water loss by utilising Taggle System’s smart water network and analytics application MiWater to find and fix leaks before the water drains away.

In 2017, Narrabri installed smart water meters to monitor hourly consumption on every house, business and council property connected to town water. This technology has assisted the council in identifying leaks and taking proactive steps to maintain and improve the water network.

Narrabri’s water losses were significantly reduced, having previously experienced 40 per cent non-revenue water, the third highest in New South Wales. Narrabri has managed to decrease that figure by half to 20 per cent non-revenue water and expects to recover another ten per cent within two years’ time.

The installation of automatic meter reading devices has helped to generate more revenue, more accurate accounting of water and the ability to continuously monitor performance. Other outcomes included more accurate billing, fewer rebates, reduced infrastructure damage and lower maintenance costs.

Customer relations have also improved dramatically, even difficult customers become very thankful when costly leaks are identified. The Taggle solution includes MyH2O, a customer portal which allows residents to monitor their own water consumption. This gives residents more insight into their behaviour and the ability to set high usage alerts to avoid wasted water from forgotten running taps.

Monitoring wastewater on the horizon

After its success with smart water meters, Narrabri is now looking into monitoring its wastewater network.

Level sensors will provide real-time data to monitor the sewer network and provide alerts to any potential blockages. This will allow for maintenance teams to address problems before they impact customers and become potential Environment Protection Authority reportable events.

Narrabri will be one of three utilities trialling Taggle’s soon-to-be-released MiSewer wastewater analytics application which will correlate data from multiple sensors to provide valuable insights.

Rain gauges are already in place to monitor the effect rain has on the sewer network, as well as on water use by residents. Since these were installed two years ago there has, unfortunately, been very little rain to monitor, which highlights the importance of conserving every drop.

Below are some of the water meters sending hourly data to monitor consumption and identify leaks!

View this article in Utility Magazine here https://utilitymagazine.com.au/smart-water-meters-have-proven-their-worth-now-narrabri-is-investigating-wastewater-analytics/