Vodacom tackles water crisis with smart meters

Vodacom Business says it is working with municipalities to manage the consumption and delivery of water and electricity using digital technology, given the supply constraints of these resources in South Africa.

This follows President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address, where he emphasised the role of public-private partnerships in driving national progress.

“Infrastructure challenges pose significant threats to economic growth and social stability in South Africa,” said the Director of Vodacom Business, Videsha Proothveerajh.

“In particular, a secure, reliable water supply is an urgent priority as communities continue to regularly face disruptive water shortages due to failing infrastructure and poor management.”

Proothveerajh said Vodacom’s utility management system employs connected smart meters to provide real-time insights into water and electricity consumption.

This technology can also assist municipalities with billing and revenue collection for residents, which has been extended to fleet management as well, she said.

Vodacom was appointed as a smart metering service provider in May 2024 after National Treasury awarded the RT29 transversal contract to it and six other bidders.

Other service providers include African Metering Solutions, Blue Label subsidiary Cigicell, Conlog, Isandiso Pipelines & Engineering, Landis + Gyr, and MTN.

The tender allows municipalities to procure smart electricity and water meters, as well as other services, from seven different service providers and comprises several categories municipalities can use.

These include end-to-end smart metering, smart load management, and updating existing prepaid electricity meters.

The technical specifications for the electricity smart meters state that service providers must handle the entire time-of-use tariff reading and billing process, as well as several kVA tariff and statistical meters.

The service providers assume responsibility for the integrity of the metering installation, which includes the new meter and wiring but excludes current transformers, voltage transformers, fuses, and test blocks.

Software systems must be able to communicate securely with any electricity meter installed within the supply authority’s boundaries.

Meters must be programmable to record and report billing data for various tariff groups and store the maximum average over 30 minutes of demand in kVA recorded during the billing period.

Smart meters must also be able to log energy exported from embedded generation systems, like home solar installations, and support the Standard Transfer Specification (STS) and Currency Standard Transfer Specification (CTS).

Service providers must also provide a mobile data connection for the electricity meters to communicate.

Treasury provided similar specifications for smart water meters, which include being made of durable ABS plastic that is protected against sunlight and corrosion.

The water meters must run on the Sigfox network, feature an embedded antenna, and have a lithium battery with an approximate life of 10 years.

All smart meters must be automatically monitored around the clock for irregular activities, and the system must trigger an alarm for any tampered meters.

A system-generated notification must be sent to the supply authority’s responsible personnel on any identified meter tamper alarm.

Municipalities must first apply to the National Treasury using a prescribed form to participate in the transversal contract.

They must then choose which parts of the transversal contract they need when lodging their application.

Once the application is filed, Treasury will hand it to its Local Government Budget Analysis (LGBA) directorate.

The LGBA will then evaluate the application by analysing the budget and considering affordability, cash flow, the municipality’s rollout plan, and value for money.

“Municipalities that are participating in the Debt Relief Programme and Smart Meter Grant Rollout will be invited to apply for the grant to fund their participation,” Treasury stated.

“They are not excluded from participating with their funding, providing they meet the transversal contract approval conditions.”