Household smart water metering in Spain

Since the past few years, the smart city paradigm has been influencing sustainable urban water resources management. Smart metering schemes for end users have become an important strategy for water utilities to have an in-depth and fine-grained knowledge about urban water use. Beyond reducing certai...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: March, Hug|||0000-0003-2549-0803, Morote, Álvaro Francisco|||0000-0003-2438-4961, Rico Amorós, Antonio M.|||0000-0002-9997-1186, Saurí i Pujol, David|||0000-0002-3618-7773
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:201646
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/201646
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.3390/su9040582
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:ICT
Remote meter reading
Smart meters
South Europe
Water demand-side management
Water utility
Descripción
Sumario:Since the past few years, the smart city paradigm has been influencing sustainable urban water resources management. Smart metering schemes for end users have become an important strategy for water utilities to have an in-depth and fine-grained knowledge about urban water use. Beyond reducing certain labor costs, such as those related to manual meter reading, such detailed and continuous flow of information is said to enhance network efficiency and improve water planning by having more detailed demand patterns and forecasts. Research focusing on those initiatives has been very prolific in countries such as Australia. However, less academic attention has been paid to the development of smart metering in other geographies. This paper focuses on smart water metering in Spain and, more particularly, documents and reflects on the experience of the city of Alicante (southeastern Spain), a pioneer case of massive deployment of remote reading of water meters at the household level and for large urban customers. Through data and interviews with water managers from the water utility, we shed light on the costs and early benefits, as well as the potentialities and (unexpected) problems of this technology to contribute to more sustainable urban water cycles.