Community & Business
16 July, 2024
TRC looks at ways to reduce water demand
CHANGES are looming for the way Tablelands Regional Council manages its water supply network, with an extensive report identifying ways to reduce water use including putting the price up, detecting leaks within the system and replacing the council’s ageing water meters with “smart” ones, which would allow council to defer major upgrades to its infrastructure.
The Demand Management Initiatives Assessment Report is the first step by the council to find ways to reduce water use across its 13 water supply schemes and Water and Waste manager Bruce Gardiner explained why it was in the council’s interest to go down this path.
“Why would we do that? Because it can improve the reliability of the supply, extends the life of your infrastructure, defers the time until you need to upgrade the infrastructure so there’s a capital saving there, reduces the water taken from the environment and reduces your operation and maintenance costs,” he told councillors.
The report by AECOM explores a suite of options that would achieve water usage reduction including increasing the price of water, introducing smart water meters, tackling leakage within the system, water pressure management, rainwater tanks and community education.
Mr Gardiner said one of the key outcomes of the report was the identification of non-revenue water, which, for Atherton, amounted to 40% of the water supplied.
“Non-revenue water is water that we take out of the environment, we treat and supply to the customer and is not paid for – that’s water that’s not billed, not metered, lost through leakage, and lost through backwashing in water treatment plants,” Mr Gardiner explained.
“There’s a lot of gains we can make through reducing that non-revenue water across the 13 schemes.”
Mr Gardiner said another key outcome of the assessment report was the suggested introduction of smart water meters which are being used by other local governments with success.
Smart meters are digitally enabled with magnetic or ultrasonic reading technology which enables transmission of data between the meter and the customer, with some councils offering consumers a portal through which they can monitor their usage and get alerted to leaks.
Mr Gardiner advised councillors that out of the organisation’s nearly 10,000 water meters, half were more than 10 years old and due for replacement.
“As water meters age, they start under-reading the water that is going through them and the industry threshold is that you replace your water meters every 10 years,” he said
“So there’s a significant bit of work to be there to replace those meters over a number of years.”
Currently, TRC plumbing crews manually read the 9,637 mechanical meters twice a year which takes three to four weeks each time, at an annual cost of $127,000. Smart meters would allow for automated and remote reading of meters on a more frequent basis and, coupled with customers being able to keep a watchful eye on their water use, could drive down demand by between 8% to 12%.
“The analysis indicates that the highest reductions are achievable through the implementation of smart meters particularly for Atherton, Malanda, Walkamin and Yungaburra, and system leakage reduction particularly in Atherton, Walkamin, Ravenshoe, and Yungaburra,” the report states.
But the move would come at a cost, with the report estimating that it would cost upwards of $5.6 million to replace all of the meters.
The report also explores what raising the pay for use price would deliver, suggesting that a 10% rise for both residential and commercial usage, would deliver a reduction of 3%. Currently, the price for kilolitre is $1.35.
“This is the most beneficial DMI (demand management initiative) for all the schemes,” the report says, that could reduce demand by 3% for Atherton, Walkamin, Malanda and Yungaburra, which was “enough to delay capital costs by 3-7 years”.
Community water education programs could also deliver around a 5% reduction in usage.
The report recommends that council focus on the “supply side” initiatives, being pricing increases, pressure management, leakage management and smart metering, as a first priority.
“Council needs to consider its budgetary capacity to handle a smart metering rollout, given the ageing meter fleet which will require complete replacement of 70% of that fleet within five years,” the report states.
Councillors will be provided with a series of information sessions to understand what options are available before any decisions are made.
