Thames passes the one million smart meter milestone

Thames Water has celebrated hitting the one million smart meter installation milestone.

The company’s smart programme began eight years ago and remains the largest in the industry. It has driven the identification of 80,000 leaks since 2016, which have been repaired saving 57Mlitres of water a day. Overall, Thames said its metered customers use 12% less water, and are able to manage their usage and bills more closely.

The company plans to install 140,000 more smart meters in total this year, 78,000 of which are part of the compulsory programme. The bulk of these will be in the Thames Valley area, where the company wants to get a closer understanding of usage and leakage, having already achieved this in London.

Outside of Swindon and Guildford, the Thames Valley installations will connect via Vodafone’s Narrowband IoT network, complementing the company’s primary solution for London, Swindon and Guildford which uses Arqiva radio masts.

In AMP8, Thames is looking to install around one million more smart meters, around three-quarters of which will be replacements.