Investment in Smart Water Meters Continues to Grow

Research shows global investment in water metering technology will grow to $7.5 billion per year by 2026 as municipalities across the world aim to reduce non-revenue water.

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Water infrastructure across the world is in need of major upgrades to improve its efficiency. Globally, nearly one-third of water delivered by utilities is lost due to leakage, failure to accurately meter usage and theft. Modernizing water infrastructure with advanced meters, communications and software can reduce this unsustainable amount of lost water.

Investment in water metering is projected to grow from $3.7 billion per year in 2016 to $7.5 billion per year in 2026, according to new research published by Northeast Group LLC.

"Smart water metering is a few years behind smart electricity metering, but is now catching up across the world," says Ben Gardner, president of Northeast Group. "For example, in the U.S. some water utilities are now beginning to collaborate with electric utilities to share metering communications infrastructure.

Gardner says in Europe several countries — notably France, Spain and the United Kingdom — have large smart water metering projects underway as does Australia. Also, countries in the Middle East are deploying smart water meters to help better manage water scarcity issues.

A key challenge in water delivery is the high rate of non-revenue water among utilities across the world. Globally, 28 percent of water is lost to undetected leaks in water infrastructure, failure to accurately meter usage and in some cases theft. In several countries, NRW rates exceed 50 percent. NRW can be reduced through smart metering, in particular through advanced metering infrastructure, or two-way communicating water meters.

Several international vendors are competing for this sizable market. Leading vendors include Aclara, Apator, Arad Group, Badger Meter, Diehl, Itron, Elster, Kamstrup, Mueller, Neptune, Sensus, Silver Spring Networks, Zenner and others.

Northeast Group's Global Water Metering Market Dataset (2016-2026) includes more than 30,000 data points. The research deliverables include an Excel file and a 34-slide executive summary presentation in PowerPoint. There are 125 individual countries covered in detail. To order a copy of the dataset, visit www.northeast-group.com.

Northeast Group LLC is a smart infrastructure market intelligence firm based in the District of Columbia.



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