Conserving water in Toowoomba with a smart IoT solution

Customer: Toowoomba Regional Council (TRC)
Industry: Local Government 

Overview

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

The Toowoomba project is the first telco-led consortium to be awarded a contract for such an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solution.

Let the rollout commence

To deliver this critical project, Optus partnered with IOTA, ETS Electrical Services, GreenBe and Security Communication Solutions Intl P/L Trading as M2M Telecoms (M2M Telecom) on the staged deployment of 68,000 new smart water meters for Council. The rollout began in mid-2022 and will take four years to complete.

The initial stage of the meter deployment involved residential, industrial, and commercial volunteers from the local community, allowing for testing and fine-tuning of the system before mass deployment.

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

Benefits for all

Residents of the Toowoomba region will be able to use a web portal or app to see their water usage in near real-time, plus receive early notification of any leaks – a key benefit for any home or business owner whose first warning of a hidden leak has been an unexpectedly large water bill. 

They can also see from the time-based water usage report which activities are using lots of water – from long showers to watering the garden or even using an inefficient washing machine.  

Critically, the AMI solution will also enable the Toowoomba Regional Council to: 

• optimise water management
• have greater operational transparency
• increase the accuracy of water usage measuring
• know when and where leaks are happening

Full implementation

Following the successful implementation of the initial trial of nearly 2,000 meters, software systems and services involved in the Smart metering and leak detection solution, in November 2022, it was announced that Council had voted to commence full implementation of the program. 

“We’re especially motivated to find water savings at Council and so when we did the Smart Water Meter trial and detected 12% of water loss in the network, we were keen to roll out the program to the entire Region,” TRC Water and Waste Committee Chair Cr Rebecca Vonhoff said.

“We’ve been able to detect leaks on customers’ properties which we previously wouldn’t have identified, which is one of the main goals of this program.

“The system also can alert residents and our team of any significant spikes in usage. Once the rest of the meters are installed we’ll be able to identify further leaks, which will help us save valuable water and improve our water security - which is vital.”

Solution components

Key elements of the solution include:

• Optus’ NB-IoT network, Optus Device Management Platform (Powered by Nokia) and Optus SIM Management Platform(Powered by Cisco)
• IOTA’s blockchain-powered IoT devices and fit-for-water IoT platform
• User experience platform (customer portal) from GreenBe
• Installation services from ETS Electrical Services
• Support assurance from Security Communication Solutions International (SCSI) and Optus 

The Optus SIM Management platform and Optus device management platform activate the smart water meters using the NB-IOT network.

The meter data collected will be analysed by Iota’s fit-for-water enterprise IoT platform, Lentic®, which will integrate with TRC’s enterprise systems and provide valuable insights to help residents monitor water usage and allow Council to manage their water network proactively.

Consortium partner GreenBe will use data from Lentic® to display consumption dashboards for customers and notifications when water usage exceeds a certain threshold.

Leveraging Optus partner expertise

The combined expertise of Optus and its partners was critical in developing the solution, as Queensland is one of the last states left where local government (councils) continue to manage water infrastructure – not private companies. Consequently, the Council did not have the in-house expertise to devise such a cutting-edge platform.

Through partnering with the Optus consortium, Council now benefits from a best-in-class, end-to-end solution that can be easily maintained by Council staff and is simple and intuitive for residents and local businesses to use.

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