Itron Smart Meters Installed in Mumbai Reduced Water Losses by Half

The largest U.S. maker of metering devices that save energy and cut waste; Itron Smart Meters Installed in Mumbai Reduced Water Losses by Half.

Smart meter use in India’s most populous city eliminated 50 percent of the 700 million liters (150 million gallons) a day of water that’s wasted or leaked by broken pipes, Marcel Regnier, Itron’s chief operating officer for water, said recently from Paris.

“The target was, with the same level of resource and the same capital investment, to provide water to a larger portion of the population,” said Regnier. Initial results show a “significant” improvement in supply and new customers despite being too early to fully quantify, he said.

Mumbai installed the meters, which can be read remotely, to help improve supplies from a system that provides tap water to half of the city’s 13 million residents for a few hours a day and no water at all for everyone else, Regnier said. About 50 percent of Mumbai’s potable water is lost compared with an average of 34 percent worldwide and about 10 percent for the most efficient water systems.

Itron now is installing, or has contracts to install, meters in the suburb of Navi Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore and has seen similar water savings in Africa.

Metering helped the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai find leaks and discouraged waste, “putting a value on a shared resource,”. In practice, Mumbai residents fill cisterns daily to assure a 24-hour water supply, he said.

“If you’re able to meter the product and charge a fair price for it, a very low price but a fair price, it gives the utility enough return on their investment that they can develop more lines and capacity,” Itron Chief Executive Officer Philip Mezey said in an interview in New York.