As a water utility provider, delivering reliable and safe water to communities is our priority, but finding a comprehensive solution has been challenging. We needed features like extensive customer data, remote management and prepaid functionality to enhance our service.
The challenge
A West African water provider, 4Ward Development, faced challenges with metering systems for prepaid water in Ghana. The company faced traditional meters that could be unreliable, prone to breakdowns and could provide inaccurate consumption data.
"As a water utility provider, delivering reliable and safe water to communities is our priority, but finding a comprehensive solution has been challenging,” says Oppong Agyare Botah, 4Ward Development’s General Manager, Southern Operations. “We needed features like extensive customer data, remote management and prepaid functionality to enhance our service.”
Manually reading meters, invoicing, and managing connection points also presented logistical challenges, especially in rural areas with limited network coverage. Additionally, customers lacked control over their water usage, leading to misunderstandings over bills.
“In our search, we found Flow Meter, a prepaid water metering solution,” Oppong Agyare Botah says. “We agreed to a testing period to evaluate the desirable features we were looking out for.”
Solution
Flow Meter enabled end users to pay for what they consumed and eliminated customers’ post-paid billing challenges, streamlining revenue collection. Even without connectivity, customers could monitor their water usage and credit balance. Botah says that this transparency empowered them to manage the water consumption and budget accordingly.
For Botah’s team, Flow Meter enabled remote water credit top-up for end-users, remote shutting and opening of valves, as well as getting flow information, purchase information, and usage information from the online, cloud-based platform. This prevented the need to visit the meter and helped with monitoring consumption trends. Furthermore, the remote monitoring function allowed 4Ward Development the potential to detect issues like leaks or tampering and gather usage data for analysis and planning.
Outcome
The Flow Meter addressed 4Ward Development’s challenges during the pilot project.
“The web dashboard's remote management has streamlined our operations, allowing us to control valves easily,” says Oppong Agyare Botah. “Access to customer data helps us understand their needs, and the prepaid functionality has optimized our efficiency by reducing labour costs for revenue collection.”
The remote management has streamlined our operations. Access to customer data helps us understand their needs, and the prepaid functionality has optimised our efficiency by reducing labour costs for revenue collection.
Topic
Community prepaid water meter
Location
Ghana and West Africa
Customer
4Ward Development
Grundfos supplied
Grundfos supplied the Grundfos Connect Flow Meter for the pilot project to 4Ward Development.