GWCL to implement automated meter reading technology

The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is consulting with other international service providers to explore and adopt an automatic meter reading technology that would help it run a more efficient system.

The technology, dubbed "Project Kingfisher", currently being implemented in the country on pilot basis at areas around the Ministries and the Castle.

The system is being carried out in collaboration with Advanced Technology RAMAR Limited, a UK leading provider of automatic meter reading and Ericsson, a Swedish phone manufacturers.

The introduction of the technology is one the company's attempts to minimise its commercial and operational problems, Mr Mike Gough the Commercial Director of RAMAR said on Wednesday.

Explaining the technology to the press and stakeholders in Accra, he said his company was approached in 2001 to help the GWCL address the inadequacies in water provision.

He said the losses resulting from such inadequacies over the years, added up to over 50 percent unaccounted water bills together with an 80 percent revenue collection ratio giving an overall efficiency of 40 percent.

This situation, he said, necessitated the introduction of the project, which focussed on the deployment of zonal and customer water meters that are fitted with radio transceiver devices.

The devices he said, would enable on-demand meter readings to be taken from a central site or across a local and wide area network, which would provide information into a standard database from where it could be accessed by user application software.

From a central host computer, consumer meter flows could be read and summated for comparison with the inflow through the related zonal meter and through that arrangement, the system assist in isolating faults leading to early detection of leakage.

Mr Gough said a system had been proposed for the project in order that the necessary expertise could be gradually built within GWCL before embarking upon a full-scale nation-wide rollout of approximately 250,000 zonal and consumer meters.

He said the first phase would cover the North Western part of Accra with installation of 11,000 meters while the second, third and fourth phases would cover Ashanti, Western and the other regions respectively.

Mr Peter Korsinah Management Information System Manager of GWCL said findings after the meeting would be presented to the Board of GWCL for the necessary funding to be sought for its implementation.

He expressed the hope that the project would help the company to provide an efficient billing system among other things.