Thirsty cities grapple with smart meters, dumb pipes

Just as smart electricity meters are touted as a way to better control energy consumption and waste, smart water meters promise to help cities around the world stem losses due to everything from aging, leaky pipes to outright theft.

A SmartReach consortium metering trial under way in Reading and London, for example, is gathering vast amounts of water flow and usage data for Thames Water. The utility hopes that better and near-real-time information about what’s happening in its water pipes will help it become more efficient and able to respond more quickly to leaks.

“As water becomes an increasingly precious resource, smart water metering will play a critical role in helping the water industry to better manage consumption and leakage,” said Piers Clark, commercial director at Thames Water. He said tests using long-range radio communications across a trial smart water meter network “promises far more available data on water flows that will help Thames Water to manage consumer demand and pinpoint leakages.”

Smart meters and real-time data networks, though, are just one part of the solution to making the world’s city water systems more efficient. Another major fix will need to come in the form of replacing deeply buried water tunnels that, in many cities, are 100 years old or more.

That’s neither a small nor inexpensive proposition. New York City, for instance, is now 42 years  — yes, 42 years — into construction of its City Tunnel No. 3, a massive water pipe that will, when completed, stretch more than 60 miles across the city at depths of 250 to 800 feet. The tunnel, which is ultimately expected to carry a price-tag of around $6 billion, is needed because the city’s two other main water tunnels can’t be shut down for repairs — engineers fear the systems are so old they might not be able to be reopened once shut down.

It’s no surprise that the tunnel is described as “the largest capital construction project in New York City’s history,” as well as “one of the world’s engineering marvels.”

On the other side of the globe, Delhi is battling equally challenging water problems. A combination of aging pipes, leaks and supplies that are simply unable to keep up with demand have led to a growing reliance on water tankers, which in turn has created what some call a “tanker mafia.”

Elsewhere, infrastructure failures are also being compounded by outright water scarcity, which is why water is often being called “the next oil.”

Whether it’s smarter technology or just new pipes that don’t leak, addressing water supply problems on a global scale won’t be cheap. A report from the World Economic forum in 2009 put the price of updating the world’s energy, water and transport infrastructure at an extra $2 trillion a year for the next 20 years, meaning that’s on top of what we’re already spending. Finding a smart fix to the financing challenge — on top of the resource and technology ones — will be a tall order indeed.