IoT improves SA water infrastructure challenges
by AKANI CHAUKE
JOHANNESBURG – A SUITE of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions being rolled out and others under development are set to address issues around water supply infrastructure in South Africa.
The use of this technology is anticipated to mitigate water loss, deliver enhanced water storage solutions as well as improve meter reading.
The latter will drive accurate billing.
Technology communications company, Vodacom Group, together with its subsidiary, IoT.nxt have devised and installed two IoT technology solutions in South Africa since the start of the year to improve water resource management.
This forms part of an overall strategy to develop new approaches to address challenges faced by managers of water facilities.
“The introduction of IoT technology to better manage water infrastructure has the potential to enhance efficiencies across the entire water supply chain,” said Richmond Nkambule, Business Development – Sales, at IoT.nxt.
The solution came ahead of World Water Day, celebrated on March 22 this year, as well as South Africa’s Water week (15 to 22 March 2021).
“Those challenges (around the management of infrastructure) informed the development of our solutions and we have recorded positive results with the projects already implemented,” said Nkambule.
The first project has been rolled at a district municipality in a rural area of South Africa. It provides the municipality with a real time view of its water infrastructure.
The other solution, a Smart Water Storage Management Solution, was installed at a large pharmaceutical company in Johannesburg to drive efficiencies, reduce risk and help create water security within its office park.
The solution provides the company with a complete view of water levels in eight water tanks and sends alarms notifying the facilities manager when water from the municipality has stopped.
Peter Malebye, Managing Executive for IoT at Vodacom Business, said South Africa is one of the 30 driest countries in the world.
He said increasingly, municipalities and other utility service providers are looking to innovative end-to-end connected solutions that enable utility operations to run more efficiently, reliably, safely and cost-effectively.
“Our modem-driven, end-to-end software solution helps clients to implement advanced state-of-the-art analytics, revenue assurance and protection, and smart pre-payment to improve utilities’ operational performance,” Malebye said.
– CAJ News
