WATER UTILITIES
Trends in utility management WRP Consulting provides a range of services in the water sector: from strategy development at a water supply system level to the water conservation and demand management for municipalities and utilities. Zama Siqalaba, CEO of WRP Consulting, highlights trends and concerns within the utility management space. By Kirsten Kelly
C
urrently, greater attention is placed on reducing water demand than increasing water supply with additional infrastructure. “When looking at tenders over the past few years, there has been a definite shift from large infrastructure projects to tenders around the management of infrastructure, with a special focus on reducing non-revenue water (NRW),” says Siqalaba. Reducing water demand WRP Consulting completed its first NRW benchmarking study of all municipalities in South Africa in 2012, with a further update in 2015. The 2012 report showed NRW sitting at 36.8%, while the 2015 report put NRW at 41% – revealing a serious regression. “Increasing water supply does not help anything
if we are unable to manage our existing water supply,” states Siqalaba. “Large water infrastructure projects require a significantly larger portion of capital investment when compared to NRW projects. In fact, NRW projects can defer future capital investments on infrastructure projects.” The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has turned down a lot of requests from municipalities around the expansion of water resource use licences when there has been a failure to prove that advanced water demand management systems are in place. WRP Consulting is currently working on a project in a metro funded by a prominent international financing organisation, where it will develop and package an NRW project for funding. “We are focusing on a particular area and establishing a baseline of water losses and NRW. Recommendations will then be made on the types of interventions needed to reduce NRW – it is a trend across a number of metros,” adds Siqalaba.
needed on assets in the ground as well as their operational status. Data is aggregated from different sources. It has helped to have a standard – the International Water Association Water Balance,” explains Siqalaba. Some municipalities in rural areas do not have even the most rudimentary information needed to reduce NRW because metering is a challenge. “The difference between rural and urban settings is that urban areas can be divided into manageable zones that will each be individually metered – providing a greater amount of detail than rural areas. But in a rural setting, one can use bulk meters to establish a municipality’s system input and consumption, with the difference being water losses,” says Siqalaba. WRP has developed the Zednet platform – a fully hosted software solution that manages infrastructure and assists in identifying and reducing losses in water distribution systems and aggregates logging information. “The Zednet platform is a real-time monitoring system that gives water managers access to information. It can determine pressures and flows from bulk meters that can provide a greater amount of detail in terms of where water losses are occurring – the main principle being that there is a direct link between high pressure profiles and leaks. Ideal for rural areas, Zednet supplies information that assists water utilities and municipalities in making investment decisions based on sound information on the performance of their water distribution or supply system,” explains Siqalaba. Community awareness, public participation and PPPs There are many opportunities to change water practices and inefficient water use at community level. Siqalaba believes that communities must be involved in all
Benchmarking “Benchmarking NRW is a massive exercise, and most of our work has been done under the DWS and Water Research Commission. It requires interaction with Increasing municipalities where there is constant water supply communication, verification and does not help anything interrogation of all data – if if we are unable to there is any available. Information is manage our existing water
supply.” Zama Siqalaba,
CEO, WRP Consulting
