Gov’t to roll out smart water meters

With people calling for the use of connected prepaid meters in their homes, government has disclosed that it does not intend to adopt the use of connected prepaid meters in the near future but will instead adopt smart meters. This was revealed this week in Parliament by the Minister of Lands and Water Affairs (MLWA) Dr Kefentse Mzwinila. He indicated that government does not intend to adopt the use of prepaid meters after some challenges that it observed after their prepaid meters were piloted by some local authorities in some areas for water sector reforms.

“They were handed to the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) for operation and maintenance at takeover and lessons learnt include frequent failures, shortage of spares and lack of support from suppliers hence the WUC has not yet considered adopting this technology going forward,” Mzwinila said. Despite the challenges that government has learnt with the use of prepaid meters, Mzwinila stated that his ministry and the government do not intend to throw in the towel yet with adopting technology as they intend to adopt smart metres.

“It is worth mentioning that in an effort to transition into a smart utility, the WUC is embarking on the roll out of smart meters from next year April 2024,” the minister said.

He noted that the installation of the smart meters would be in phases approach. He highlighted that the first phase approach would run from 2024 till the year 2027. The minister envisioned that within the three-year time frame, WUC would have replaced 500, 000 conventional meters with the smart metres.

“A transactional advisor has been engaged to advise the WUC on this programme. Though smart metres may not be the same as prepaid metres, they have a prepayment capability,” Mzwinila revealed.

Furthermore, Mzwinila stated that the smart metres provide a reliable way of measuring water usage because of its advanced technology and can easily be integrated into smart cities, homes, and eco-friendly. They can be monitored and operated remotely.

Additionally, he said: “The facility provides real time metre reading updates which can result in water savings, cost savings and customer satisfaction amongst others. It also has an ability to track volume of water consumed in households and one other great advantage is that it has the ability to provide usage alarms that pinpoint household water leaks immediately and as such save customers significant costs on their water bills,” he said.

Meanwhile, the minister said that the WUC has already kick-started the process in some parts of the country. “The corporation has already rolled out 1, 027 smart metres in Gaborone, including the running of piloting prepayment solution on 100 of existing smart metres,” he said.

Mzwinila was responding to a question posed to him by the Member of Parliament (MP) of Selebi-Phikwe East constituency, Kgoberego Nkawana.