Water

It is clear that water supplies throughout the United States are not a source of real risk for coronavirus transmission. Advanced water treatment processes regularly include chlorination and other steps designed to prevent microbial and viral contamination. While there may be very modest risks for transmission in wastewater, the real threat to the water industry from the global pandemic is the impact on the people who are responsible for maintaining our water systems. Water utility management is labor intensive and many suppliers operate outdated systems that require manual intervention at numerous stages of the procurement, treatment, delivery, and meter-to-cash processes.

[Read more…] about Water Technologies for the Pandemic Era

Cities and states around the country have announced temporary suspensions of all utility service shutoffs due to non-payment. As of this writing more than 90 cities have suspended water shutoffs. San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Birmingham, and Pittsburgh are just a few municipalities that have publicly announced shutoff moratoriums for 60 days or more, as well as private water companies such as American Water. Government officials recognize the critical role that water and electric services play in maintaining public health, particularly in light of a global viral pandemic which has already infected hundreds of thousands of people.

[Read more…] about Water Shut-Off Suspensions and the Coronavirus Crisis

Water utilities and municipalities across the United States have a common process for purchasing goods and services. This typically involves publicly issuing a Request for Information (RFI) or a Request for Proposals (RFP) that outlines the purpose and goals of the project and details the technical and business requirements that qualified vendors are expected to meet. After receiving bid submissions, a committee evaluates the set of vendor responses across a number of criteria including experience, technical detail, cost, and other factors.

[Read more…] about Rethinking Water Utility Procurement

Water utilities are providers of life sustaining services that we all rely on. Yet, at least in the United States, water services are taken for granted by many people. Ironically, this is partly due to the tremendous success that water suppliers have had in providing safe and reliable services for so long. Very few people have ever had an experience of turning on their water tap and not receiving clean, safe drinking water. In addition to the general reliability of water services, people see water availability as a human right. We depend on it for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. The oceans, rivers, and streams overflow with water. Water falls from the sky. We are surrounded by water, and this apparent abundance and reliability gives the impression that it should be free, or at least very inexpensive.

[Read more…] about A Multi-Pronged Approach to Water Affordability

The idea of post-paid water services is a first world construct. In order to reliably collect payment for water services after the fact, utilities need to verify customer credit worthiness. This generally means that customers have a bank account, credit card, and a credit history. Steady employment, regular income, and a reliable history of paying bills on time are the general requirements to qualify for any type of service where you pay after the service has been rendered.

[Read more…] about Solving the Uncollectible Water Revenue Conundrum

The workforce in the water industry is aging. More importantly, fewer young people are entering the industry to take over jobs, creating a pending human resource gap to compound the financial resource challenges that many water suppliers currently face. The numbers are substantial. A 2010 report by the Water Research Foundation and the American Water Works Association found that up to 50% of senior utility managers would be eligible for retirement over the next 10 years, leaving a dearth of experienced managers at the helm. This is occurring just as the needs for digital transformation to a smart utility, with a new set of technology and innovation challenges, takes hold.

[Read more…] about Digital Transformation for an Aging Water Workforce

The water industry has seen gradual growth in the adoption of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and related data analytics solutions over the past decade, but that rate of growth has been modest at best. This is somewhat surprising given the well documented benefits of AMI including lower costs, revenue recovery, improved operational efficiency, and increased customer satisfaction. If AMI provides so many advantages to water suppliers and their customers, why isn’t every utility in the country clamoring to implement smart metering? What barriers are discouraging more rapid technology adoption and how, as an industry, do we support each other to overcome these challenges to unlock the power of water data?

[Read more…] about Crossing the Digital Water Divide

With the end of the decade quickly approaching, the team at SET is putting on our magic goggles to prognosticate some likely trends in digital water for the next year and beyond. 2020 is not only the dawn of a new decade, but it’s also witness to the fruition of a number of fascinating developments over the past few years that are likely to gain further traction in the year ahead. While some things in the water industry don’t change quickly, including the pace of change, there are trends that are likely to support the ongoing shift toward increased digitization of water utility management. Without further ado, here are our top 5 forecasts for the year ahead:

[Read more…] about Top 5 Water Technology Predictions SET for 2020