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News Release

Thames Water and SmartReach Extend Smart Water Meter Trial

Water utilities worldwide are adopting technologies that will help them achieve gains in efficiency, improve customer service and protect resources. Sensus is on the leading edge of the growing smart grid for water and is helping water utilities around the globe implement water management projects that leverage long-range radio communication and intelligent endpoints.

SmartReach, a collaboration of Arqiva, BT, BAE Systems Detica and Sensus for smart metering communications in Great Britain, is supporting the Thames Water project—a smart water meter trial that illustrates the suitability of long-range radio communications and smart water metering for helping water companies better manage networks, reduce leaks and conserve water.

Thames Water and SmartReach Extend Smart Water Meter Trial

SmartReach and Thames Water demonstrate the suitability of a long-range radio communications network for connecting smart water meters Project shows how smart water metering can help water companies to better manage their networks, reduce leaks and conserve water

SmartReach, a collaboration of Arqiva, BT, BAE Systems Detica and Sensus for smart metering communications in Great Britain, has announced the extension of its smart meter and smart grid trial in the Reading area to include London.

The SmartReach solution has been used in the Reading trial to demonstrate the suitability of a long-range radio based communications network for communicating with water meters. This extension to the trial will enable Thames Water and SmartReach to assess the performance of the communications system from locations with different housing stock and difficult to reach, underground meter locations.

Ensuring that the utility companies can connect smart meters to the network first time, and that communication can be established with all meters, will be critical factors in successfully achieving the Government’s 2019deadline for the deployment of smart energy meters to all homes and small premises. SmartReach has been running trials with Scottish Power, SSE and Thames Water to demonstrate the suitability of long-range radio for dedicated smart meter communications, for energy as well as for water networks.

While the installation of smart water meters has not been mandated by UK government, the trial with Thames Water will enable the benefits such a system could provide to the operation of a water network to be evaluated.  Widely deployed in the US, where more than 9 million smart meter and grid end points are connected to long-range radio based networks from Sensus, the technology has been shown to be suitable for meters located in hard-to-reach locations such as meter pits, cellars and basements.

Dr Piers Clark, commercial director at Thames Water, said: “As water becomes an increasingly precious resource, smart water metering will play a critical role in helping the water industry to better manage consumption and leakage. Based on the current trial with SmartReach in Reading, we believe that long-range radio offers a simple, quick, non-obtrusive and efficient means of building a Smart Water Meter network.  The system promises far more available data on water flows that will help Thames Water to manage consumer demand and pinpoint leakages. Extending the scope of the trial to London will provide further valuable data.”

David Green, smart metering sales director for Arqiva, said: “We are delighted to extend the smart metering trial with Thames Water.  It is demonstrating the importance of smart meters to the water industry and proving the suitability of long-range radio as a communications solution for smart water, smart meters and smart grids.”

About SmartReach

Arqiva, BT, BAE Systems Detica and Sensus are working together to promote their SmartReach solution for Britain’s smart meter and smart grid programme. The SmartReach solution is an end-to-end data communications network that will provide a dedicated, secure, resilient and universal route to supporting the Government’s mandate for providing all homes and small premises with smart meters by 2019.

About Arqiva

Arqiva, the communications infrastructure and media services company, operates at the heart of the broadcast, satellite and mobile communications markets. The company is at the forefront of network solutions and services in the digital world. Arqiva provides much of the infrastructure behind television, radio, satellite and wireless communications in the UK and has a significant presence in Ireland, mainland Europe and the USA. Customers include major broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV, BSkyB and the independent radio groups, major telco providers including the UK’s five mobile network operators, and the emergency services. www.arqiva.com

About BT

BT is one of the world’s leading communications services companies, serving the needs of customers in the UK and in more than 170 countries worldwide. Our main activities are the provision of fixed telephony lines and calls, broadband, mobile and TV products and services as well as managed networked IT services. In the UK we are a leading communications services provider, selling products and services to consumers, small and medium sized enterprises and the public sector. We also sell wholesale products and services to communications providers in the UK and around the world. Globally, we supply managed networked IT services to multinational corporations, domestic businesses and national and local government organisations.

About BAE Systems Detica

BAE Systems Detica delivers information intelligence solutions to government and commercial customers. We help them collect, exploit and manage data so they can deliver critical business services more effectively and economically. We also develop solutions to strengthen national security and resilience. We integrate and deliver world-class solutions to our customers’ most complex operational problems – often applying our own unique intellectual property. Our services include cyber security, managing risk and compliance, data analytics, systems integration and managed services, strategy and business change and the development of innovative software and hardware technologies.Detica is part of BAE Systems, a global defence and security company with over 100,000 employees worldwide. BAE Systems delivers a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and customer support services.

About Sensus

Sensus is a leading utility infrastructure company offering smart meters, communication systems, software and services for the electric, gas, and water industries. Sensus technology helps utilities drive operational efficiency and customer engagement with applications that include advanced meter reading, data acquisition, demand response, distribution automation, home area networking and outdoor lighting control. Customers worldwide trust the innovation, quality and reliability of Sensus solutions for the intelligent use and conservation of energy and water.

Information on Thames Water

Thames Water, which serves London and the Thames Valley, is Britain’s biggest water and sewerage company.

Top-quality drinking water: We supply more than a tonne a week of water on average to each of our 8.7m of our drinking water customers. That’s 2,600m litres a day.

Recycling water back to the environment: We also recycle safely back to the environment 13.8m people’s wastewater. That’s 2,800m litres of sewage a day – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Our region: Our service area stretches from eastern fringes of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire in the west, through to the western edges of Essex and Kent in the east.

Bills: Our bills are among the lowest in the UK water sector, with the average household bill currently 93p a day per household for water and sewerage services.

Regulators: All water firms in England and Wales are privately-owned and answerable to our regulators, who monitor all our activities.

– Ofwat is the economic regulator for the water industry: www.ofwat.gov.uk/

– The Environment Agency is the environmental regulator:

www.environment-agency.gov.uk/

– The Drinking Water Inspectorate regulates the quality of water companies supply: www.dwi.gov.uk/

Renewable energy: As well as providing water and sewerage services, we are also the biggest non-commercial producer of electricity inside the M25. We burn methane derived from sewage to create heat from which we generate our own renewable electricity to help power our works. This saves us on average £15m a year in grid energy bill.

 

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