Utilities have the responsibility of managing the quantity & quality of water. Establish a pricing policy that encourages users to save.
In Spain, currently 90% of the water bill for individuals are fixed taxes; This doesn’t really encourage savings.
A family that reduces 9m3 per year will barely notice any changes in the bill of 5€/year; On the other hand, the invoice is expressed in m3 without decimals; Does any consumption between 3001 to 3999 l appear as 3m3? Or is rounding applied?
We would recommend putting the invoice in liters to avoid these doubts. Furthermore, this would help citizens better understand and quantify their consumption. Gain transparency and better engagement with users regardless of public or private water management.
Currently the utilities are a monopoly in most places. Competition would be highly encouraged (as with telephony or high speed trains where infrastructures are shared)….competition always benefits the consumer and forces companies to stay in ‘the state of the art’.
Smart water meters measure the flow and send it to the cloud through LORA / SIGFOX, but the information is sent to the supply company, not to the end user ! Some companies offer user to connect and monitor their consumption. Cool, but it usually loses interest after 3 weeks (after ”the novelty effect” is gone ); The possibility of comparing the per capita consumption of a person vs. your neighborhood; If the person is above average, it normally generates a ”competition” effect and will try to reduce their consumption too.
Our value proposition is to show users their consumption in real time where and when consumption occurs WITHOUT having to connect to a platform.
