Johannesburg, 25 Jan 2016
South Africa blazed into 2016 - quite literally. Still in the grips of an El Ni~no weather event, the country is under pressure from drought conditions and record temperatures from relentless heatwaves. Ironically, the one thing that could provide some relief is in short supply, says Kroshlen Moodley, GM: Public Sector and Utilities at SAS.
While we fill up our swimming pools, crank up the air conditioning and take longer, cooler showers, the government is urging us to use water sparingly and has implemented restrictions in some areas as it battles to keep up with demand using infrastructure that is not up to the task.
Building new reservoirs and finding additional water sources requires planning, careful management and, most importantly, time. With the drought only expected to lift in March, time is another resource we don't have much of.
Fortunately, using advanced data analytics to uncover patterns and anomalies in water usage and loss, the government can take short-term steps that will have a positive long-term impact.
But before government can implement steps to save water, it needs to understand where it is losing water, which could be through technical faults such as leaking or burst pipes and contaminated water sources, or through non-technical channels, such as theft and careless usage.
Technical losses are better dealt with at a macro level, through the analytical monitoring of water sources, treatment plants and distribution networks. But immediate benefits can come from the analysis and management of non-technical losses, specifically those related to consumer education, fair pricing and fraud prevention.
Curbing fraud
Just as government loses electricity revenue through illegal connections, millions of litres of water bypass the system every day through fraudulent meter connections, which could have been identified by analytics.
Let's assume that John's household uses an average of 300 litres of water a day and has done so for the past three years, according to government data. John switches to a prepaid water system and tampers with the meter so that it sends an inaccurate reading to the municipality every month, drastically discounting his supposed water usage. As John is paying for his water in advance, the government is not likely to monitor his usage, assuming that he's getting what he paid for. However, if it had continued to monitor John's usage, it would have picked up that, although he was still using 300 litres a day, he has only been paying for 100 litres since installing the prepaid meter and could investigate further.
By comparing his prepaid and post-paid usage patterns, government would have detected anomalies in John's behaviour. Advanced analytics solutions run these models and calculations continuously and automatically and can alert the municipality to any problems in real time.
By curbing water theft, the government will have more revenue to put towards infrastructure maintenance and development, which is key to managing supply.
Customer intelligence - what's in it for me?
For a long time, South Africans have enjoyed low water rates, which has made us somewhat complacent when it comes to usage. Apart from increasing tariffs, government can encourage behavioural change through education campaigns and incentives that encourage people to use less water or to do water-intensive tasks at certain times during the day.
Consumers appreciate getting an alert from their mobile service provider when they're about to run out of data. Even better is if that alert comes with a discounted offer to top up their data balance.
But there are currently no incentives for South Africans to use water sparingly, apart from threats of restrictions, which are determined by high consumption levels. But it's difficult for government to offer such incentives as it is not accurately monitoring individual household consumption. Rather, rates are determined by type of usage - residential or commercial - and area - someone living in Sandton will pay more for water than someone living in Alexandra, for example.
But consumers shouldn't be penalised because of where they live - the Sandton resident could use a third of the amount of water that the Alexandra resident uses. By identifying responsible users through advanced analytics, government could reward them with a lower rate than excessive water users. This gives everyone a fair incentive to save water as they know they'll pay less if they use less. This, in turn, would encourage users to install sustainable systems such as grey water for the garden, which would save them even more money and take pressure off supply - and will also reduce the volume of drinking quality water that is literally being poured down the drain.
Using advanced analytics, municipalities can start to understand usage patterns. If they notice an unusual spike in usage, they could call the customer to warn them. The municipality might find out that the customer has just installed a swimming pool and is filling it up, or it could be alerting the customer to an underground leak that he was unaware of, which would prevent him from benefitting from the low usage rate.
This real-time alert and billing model could also solve some municipalities' billing crises, as they will be able to pinpoint exactly when high usage occurred if a customer were to query his bill, and municipalities would no longer have to charge customers an estimated usage rate based on past or predicted consumption.
Without reliable and accurate data, it is impossible for government to determine what percentage of water losses are due to technical problems vs non-technical ones. Advanced analytics can give government a consolidated view of usage versus supply and demand, which will allow it to better manage its resources and better incentivise consumers to use water responsibly.
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