The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Water and Sewerage Corporation (WSC) is aiming to shift to a monthly billing system through the introduction of automated meter reading (AMR) for both commercial and residential consumers, ending the practice of physical meter readings.

Glen Laville, the Corporation’s general manager, told Tribune Business that moving to a monthly billing system would have a positive affect on its cash flow and receivables.

“Receivables is still a problem. One of the things we want to do when we do the AMR is be able to move to monthly billing. Right now we bill every three months. If we move to monthly billings we feel that will also have a positive effect on our receivables,” said Mr Laville.

“AMR/AMI is automated meter reading and meter intelligence. Basically, what it is all about is rather than have someone having to come physically read the meter on a monthly or quarterly basis, you can download those either through a drive-by system - where you can drive and up to three or four blocks away, you can pick up all the meter data - or you can put in a fixed network where all of the meter data is transmitted on a regular basis.

“You can do it hourly or daily, and it is transmitted back to the Corporation and directly into the billing system. It would cause us to be able to react quicker to consumption issues and also, for our larger consumers, we would be able to put that information online and they would be able to access it through the website, so they would be able to see and track what their consumption patterns are.”

Speaking following a presentation at the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA) conferdence, Mr Laville added: “Under the IDB project we are doing right now, there is $500,000 for us to do an AMR for our commercial customers.

“What we would really like to do is to expand that to take into account residential and commercial customers. We are also looking at the possibility of partnering with BEC, where the same system would be able to read water and electricity meters. It could be a benefit to both corporations and that’s something we are looking very hard at.”

Mr Laville said the Corporation was planning to aggressively pursue the 10,000 potential consumers who use their own private wells. “In areas where we serve water there are people who use wells all the time,” he added.

“Then you have people who may use wells as a back up or use theCorporation as a back-up. As we improve the quality of the supply, as we improve our service level and our reliability, we are going to be aggressively pursuing those customers to come back on to the system.”

The Water and Sewerage Corporation has signed a 10-year, $83 million contract with Miya (Bahamas) a subsidiary of the Arison Investment Group, to reduce leakage from its distribution system.

The Corporation was losing close to seven million gallons of water a day, which cost it more than a $16 million a year. It is seeking to reduce non-revenue water losses to two million gallons per day by the project’s seventh year.

“When they started, their base-line was 6.9 million gallons per day in losses. In the first year they reduced that to 6.49 gallons, about half a million gallons per day in savings,” said Mr Laville.

“By the end of this year they should be down to about 5.5 million per day. That’s the annual number, but on the month-to-month basis, right now they are actually down to about 4.5 million gallons per day. Literally, since they took over, in the two years they have reduced NRW by about two million gallons per day, so the progress has been excellent.”