Why do more and more water companies choose to use smart water meters?
In recent years, with the continuous development of technology, the development of smart water meters has attracted more and more attention, and the installation of smart water meters in many regions is steadily proceeding. Why do more and more water companies choose to eliminate the massively used mechanical water meters and choose smart water meters that are rapidly developing?
With the advent of Internet of Things technology, especially the emergence of NB-IoT, a closer look at the water supply metering industry in recent years will unexpectedly find that communication technology is pushing water meters forward.
The water meter industry, which was previously unreliable, has been turbulent, from a few confidential small pilots to the 2017 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a document to comprehensively promote the construction and development of the mobile Internet of Things (NB-IoT), and then to the government work report in some regions in 2019 It is proposed to update 3.75 million residents' NB-IoT smart water meters for free for two years, which speeds up the construction of smart water services. The water supply metering industry is destined to not be calm, and NB-IoT technology has also become a hot topic in the industry and outside the industry.
The construction of smart water networks has quietly emerged and gradually evolved into an important support for smart city infrastructure. At the same time, smart cities have brought huge investment opportunities to the construction of smart water networks. According to the research data of the China Instrument Association, the IT market scale and investment in the field of water supply in 2020 has increased to more than 16.3 billion US dollars. With the implementation of tiered water prices in various countries, the smart water meter market will show a rapid growth trend, and smart water meters and remote data collection systems will show great advantages.
Although pure mechanical water meters are still the main phenotype in many second- and third-tier cities, and most new tap water users in cities use mechanical water meters, it is still difficult for existing mechanical water meters to update smart meters, but related public policies for smart water network construction and management If it can be effectively implemented and promoted, the construction of smart water networks, including the promotion of smart water meters, will be further increased.
Compared with traditional mechanical water meters, smart water meters have the following advantages:
·From the perspective of meter reading: Smart meter solves the problems of difficulty in meter reading, disturbance to the people, and high labor cost;
·From the perspective of charging: Smart water meters can not only provide users with more convenient and personalized payment methods, but also provide the water company with more accurate water consumption information, so that the water company can understand the user's water consumption habits, reduce water fee disputes, and provide better Better service;
·From a management perspective: first, it can help the water department to ensure timely over-collection of water; second, it can assist the water department to find abnormal water use problems in time; third, it can help the water department to do a good job in leakage control and strengthen DMA construction; fourth, it can help the water department in time Monitor the quality of marketing work;
For water companies, smart water meters have many advantages, but why have they not promoted the development of smart water meters?
At present, there are no complete regulations on the standards and types of smart water meters, which leads to various problems in the use of smart water meters. At the same time, smart water meters carry electronic devices and are generally more expensive than mechanical water meters.
On the one hand, due to the immature technology of smart water meters, many water companies have spent huge sums of money to replace smart meters, but the failure rate is very high after use, forcing them to spend a large amount of money to remove the electronic parts of the smart meters and re-use them as mechanical watches. The cost of trial and error is too high to use; on the other hand, in the later maintenance of smart water meters, some manufacturers have not yet achieved perfection.
"Smart water meters are a major trend. Meter management has three major elements, selection, installation, and maintenance! All kinds of meters are beautiful in theory, mainly in the application process. The quality of the application depends on the people who install and serve! The pain point is intelligence For the later maintenance of the watch, it is also very important to choose a manufacturer.
"In the field of measurement, the water company has pain points whether it is using traditional water meters or remote water meters. It should depend on what metering scenario the water company wants. If it is in a DMA application scenario, then you need to use a remote water meter. For ordinary meter reading and billing, use a traditional water meter."
Then why do many water companies choose smart water meters?
First of all, the development of smart water meters solves the problems of difficulty in meter reading, disturbance to the people, and high labor costs, and there is still great development in the prospect of use.
Secondly, the smart water meter is currently only calculating the quantity, but with the continuous development of technology, the smart water meter will also have the online detection function of chloride ion, colony content, iron ion content, and calcium ion content to ensure people's water quality and safety. However, it should be noted that the development of this function also depends on breakthroughs in sensor technology.
In addition, for the construction of the entire city, the rapid development of smart water meters can also lay the foundation for the development of smart water services, making the entire city's water services system smarter. Through the use of high-frequency water meters, it can also help users analyze leakage, especially for industrial users and large users. This can also help users save water resources and save costs. From the perspective of reducing pipe network leakage, smart water meters have more advantages. Unparalleled innate advantages.
All in all, although there are still many problems in the development of smart water meters,But from the current situation, smart water meters have been able to solve the needs faced by the water department.
As for the long-term development direction, smart water meters need to be further improved in terms of standards, technology and after-sales to better solve the pain points of the water company.SH-meters is a professional water meter manufacturer. Our company has 12 years of export experience. The main products are smart water meters and mechanical water meters. We not only support samples, but also support after-sales service. If you need a water meter, please contact us.