Optus-led consortium delivers smart water conservation solution in Toowoomba

By David Yuwono

With water as one of Australia’s most precious – and increasingly costly – resources, finding a way to save water and detect leaks early is a priority for both residents and local councils. Now, in a major upgrade to Toowoomba’s water infrastructure, a smart new metering solution from an Optus-led consortium will deliver a way to do both. 

The consortium, led by Optus Enterprise and including our partners IOTA, ETS Electrical Services and GreenBe, will see the staged deployment of 68,000 new smart water meters over the next four years, starting in mid 2022.

The smart meters will allow residents of the Toowoomba region to see their water usage in near real-time plus receive early notification of leaks – a boon for home or business owners whose first warning of a hidden leak has been an unexpectedly large water bill.

With the smart meters, residents will be able to use a web portal or an app to check their usage, helping to make it easier to see which activities around the property are causing high water consumption – from long showers to watering the garden or even using an inefficient washing machine. 

Critically, this advanced metering infrastructure solution will also enable the Toowoomba Regional Council to help optimise water management, have greater operational transparency, increase the accuracy of water usage measuring, know when and where leaks are happening, and measure pressure within the pipe network.

A first for an Australian telco

The Toowoomba project is the first telco-led consortium to be awarded a contract for such an advanced metering infrastructure solution.

“Optus Enterprise, along with our strategic partners, are excited to be involved with this major upgrade to Toowoomba’s water infrastructure,” Zorawar Singh, Head of Core Product at Optus Enterprise said. “Using best-of-breed technology, we are delivering an end-to-end solution that can put money back into the pockets of residents while also helping to save precious water from being wasted.”

The deployment leverages Optus Enterprise’s NB-IoT network, IOTA’s devices, and AMI platform, GreenBe’s user experience platform and ETS Deployment Services to bring it all together.

The combined expertise of Optus Enterprise and our partners was important for the Council as Queensland is the only state or territory in Australia where individual councils manage the water infrastructure – not private companies – and the council did not have the in-house expertise to create their own solution.

IoT in action

Residential, industrial and commercial volunteers from the local community will be part of the initial stage of the meter deployment, allowing for testing and fine-tuning of the system.

Once completed, Council will be able to operate the water network more efficiently and residents will be able to monitor their own water usage effectively.

Embracing IoT and data is all part of a transition towards becoming a truly smart council, and the solution for Toowoomba Regional Council can help deliver cost savings not only to local residents and the Council, but also benefits for the environment.

To discover more about smart IoT and data solutions from Optus Enterprise, talk to your Account Manager or contact Optus Enterprise on 1800 555 937.