H2O GLOBAL NEWS M A G A Z I N E
March 2022 Issue 1
How deep tech is helping utilities reduce non-revenue water Exclusive interview: H2O Global News Editor Sion Geschwindt spoke to BuntPlanet CEO and co-founder Ainhoa Lete, about non-revenue water and how emerging smart technologies are helping utilities combat the problem.
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rom source to treatment to tap – a lot of energy, time, and expense goes into supplying the water that flows from our taps. And in a world confronted with challenges such as population growth and climate change – every drop really does count.
But shockingly, approximately 30% of all the water that is produced is lost before ever reaching the consumer.
This wastage is known as non-revenue water (NRW) and it’s a really big issue.
Water waste NRW can occur through physical losses from leaking and broken pipes as well as commercial losses caused by the under-registration of customer meters, data handling errors, illegal connections and theft.
High levels of NRW reflect huge volumes of water being lost, not being invoiced to customers, or both. Not only is NRW a waste of precious freshwater, it seriously affects the financial viability of water utilities through lost revenues and increased operational costs. A World Bank study published in 2006, estimated that, globally, water utilities incurred losses in excess of USD 14 billion per year as a result of NRW. However, a more recent study by the International Water
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Association (IWA) puts this figure at a whopping USD 39 billion per year. That is 346 million cubic metres per day.
“If the world’s volume of non-revenue water was slashed by a third, the savings would be enough to supply 800 million people.”
Authors of the study, Roland Liemberger (who also co-authored the 2006 paper) and Alan Wyatt emphasised that, “not only is this an enormous financial concern, but elevated NRW also detracts from water utilities, in a time of increasing scarcity and climate change, from reaching their goals of full service coverage at a reliable price.” The researchers go on to highlight that if the world’s volume of NRW was slashed by a third, the savings would be sufficient to supply 800 million people. Clearly NRW is a big problem that requires some pretty urgent solutions. But how exactly can utilities go about reducing NRW?
Ways forward Most utilities know it is more cost-effective and sustainable to increase the efficiency of their networks than the volume of water that enters them.
