To protect the ecosystems and people it serves, Watercare is taking proactive action to stop sewer blockages before they become overflows.
As the largest water utility in Aotearoa New Zealand, Watercare is entrusted with protecting our most precious resource as well as the environment and communities that rely on it.
The utility provides water and wastewater services to 1.7 million customers in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and handles the collection, treatment and disposal of around 450ML of wastewater every day.
Watercare Smart Networks Manager, David Moore, explained that water is an important resource and the foundation of life, so the utility has a responsibility to look after it.
“We have a duty to future generations, and our overflow reduction program is part of that,” he said.
A sensor purpose
When wastewater spills into the environment, it can bring with it harmful contaminants that can damage local ecosystems, impact water quality and even present risks to human health if not properly treated.
Mr Moore explained that the older sections of the city have a combined stormwater and wastewater system.
“So, when we get rain, the combined system is designed to spill into the harbour,” he said.
“We also have a separated system in the rest of the city, but unfortunately people sometimes misconnect their pipes and rainwater from someone’s roof can get into the sewer, which causes overflows.”
Rather than respond to spills after they’ve already occurred, Watercare’s goal is to move to a more proactive approach – which means equipping the team with as much information as possible. However, visually inspecting thousands of kilometres of pipeline through CCTV is a monumental and time-consuming undertaking.
“The thing is, we don’t know what we don’t know,” Mr Moore said.
“Without accurate data we could think we’re doing a better job than we actually are, but if we know what is going on, then we can improve.”
Mr Moore said sewer sensors offered a promising solution.
“We started doing some pilots in Auckland and we were getting brilliant data back, so we then put a business case up ato move it region-wide and start the process,” he said.
Rather than fragmenting the project across multiple vendors, the utility deliberately selected one technology partner to simplify delivery, integration and automation.
“We’ve done a lot of projects where we had multiple partners and we all end up just pointing fingers at one another wondering why it’s not working,” Mr Moore said.
“The supplier knows their products, they know their warranties and they know how it should be installed properly.
“So, we went out to market with all our specifications, but they had to supply, install, and then operate it for a five-year period – which means they’re wedded to the longevity of their product as well.
Watercare shortlisted three applicants and then brought those three suppliers in to pitch their solutions.
“We did what we call a lean, agile procurement – we had all the supplies in the room and they all had to present their solution in front of everyone in the room.
“Then we also have a parallel commercial negotiation going on, so the commercial team is hashing out all the terms of the offers, then our teams get together and compare notes. Then we give the supplier feedback in areas we think they could do better,” Mr Moore said.
“Then in the afternoon, the suppliers come back and give us their revised and final offer and presentations. And then we make the call that day.
“We did the same thing for both the sensors and the analytics package. It’s quite a brutal procurement process, but we got it finished quite quickly – the key is having everybody there who can make the decisions to move it forward.”
In the end, it was Kallipr’s presentation that stood out to Watercare and the company is now delivering 5000 Spectra sensors across the utility’s wastewater network.
A simple solution
Kallipr CCO, Stelios Trikoulis, explained that Spectra is designed to approach sewer monitoring in a holistic way that simplifies all aspects of the way the technology is used.
“Effectively, it’s an out of the box, guided experience when it comes to sewer level monitoring. The sensor, the bracket, the mobile and the software are all packaged together so you could theoretically give someone Spectra and a user manual and they could install it,” he said.
“It’s built to be super simple for the user, but also to address historical problems that exists with sewer level monitoring.It also includes a variety of features to minimise the time spent during installation and ensure that the installation is done right the first time.”
Sewers are one of the most challenging places to deploy any kind of technology in to – as Mr Trikoulis puts it, everything wants to kill your device in a sewer.
So, Spectra had to be built to survive those harsh conditions.
“The biggest risk is water ingress into the device, as well as ensuring that all materials are corrosion resistant so even if anything is exposed, it’s protected,” he said.
“It’s built like a tank so that it can survive in that sewer environment.”
The devices have an IP68 resistance rating, which means they can be fully submerged 5m underwater for 14 days. It also uses a dual SIM-card
“In places like Auckland, where there are two major carriers and connectivity varies in different parts it means if they can’t connect to one network then the device can connect to the other,” Mr Trikoulis said.
With any remote monitoring device, Mr Trikoulis explained that the most limiting factor is how long the battery lasts.
“The biggest problem that’s faced, especially when we look at sewer technology, is that when we talk about the battery life, everyone assumes that you transmit the data back once per day,” he said.
“But, if there are alarms in the sewer for blockages or high water levels, the sensor may transmit data more frequently, sometimes up to 24 times a day (once an hour).
“If your battery can last for five years based on one transmission a day, but your average transmission is four times a day, then the battery may only last a few years.”
To solve this, operators can go down into the sewer, locate the sensor and change the battery – but Mr Trikoulis explained that this often creates more problems than it solves.
“These devices have to achieve really high IP ratings, through specific manufacturing processes. Opening them to replace the battery can compromise the seal, increase the risk of water ingress, and may even void the warranty.
“With Spectra, we use a patent pending swappable battery system. It works much like a handhled power drill – simply unscrew the old pack and and secure the new one in place.”
The battery maintains its IP68 rating when it is changed and is designed to last longer in field – it also works with the device software to reduce the load on the battery.
“We wanted to reduce the total cost to install and service this asset, and make sure that the utility can get the best bang for buck over the longest period of time,” Mr Trikoulis said.
“We have a one-cell battery pack and a two-cell battery pack. Our standard battery life of one transmission per day for the two-cell is ten years, and the one-cell is five years, and a lot of utilities are opting for the two-cell for extra insurance. On one transmission per hour, the two-cell can also last for more than a year before a battery replacement is required.”
Spectra also has on-device intelligence that does the computing at the edge, so it processes, aggregates and cleans the data before it comes back to the systems, enabling local threshold alerts and reducing unnecessary transmissions.
Not only does this help preserve the battery life, it also stops utilities from being overwhelmed by too much data
“Traditional remote monitoring would just [collect] data and feed it back to a platform. But because you’re in a sewer, you may have things in the way like a pipe, a bench or a root. Those obstructions can distort the data and make it inaccurate,” Mr Trikoulis said.
“So, Spectra has the smarts on it to clean the data before it goes back.
“We can also change the way the device reports so they can be smarter about how much data they bring in.”
Mr Trikoulis said that like Watercare, Kallipr is focused on getting it right the first time.
“We’re putting the effort into the product now to ensure that when it goes in, it doesn’t have to come back out.”
Delivering outcomes
When a large company opts for multiple suppliers, it’s got the resources to support and coordinate a number of different parties, but Mr Moore said that while Watercare is a big fish in Aotearoa, globally the utility is just a little fish in a very big pond.
“The more suppliers we go for, the more complex our ecosystems become,” he said.
“Part of the reason behind the decision [to opt for one supplier] was economics, because if we get more [devices] from one supplier, we get them cheaper. But it’s also about trying to keep our systems simple.
“If we keep them simple, we’re more likely to keep them working.”
Mr Trikoulis said that Watercare’s decision to opt for a DaaS (data as a service) model with the project, and outsource the full delivery and management of hardware, software, installation and connectivity to Kallipr is an industry first.
“It is very transformational when it comes to how you solve industry problems. Because they’re putting an outcome to market, not a specific solution,” he said.
“Traditionally when a utility buys hardware, the vendor is only thinking about their product not that way it interacts with the field team.
“As soon as you move to a DaaS model, everyone needs to work together to make this happen, and it forces the suppliers to resolve that friction to deliver the outcome.
“And I think that’s what Watercare really picked up on, they figured out that we can solve friction points by taking an outcome focused approach.”
Immediate success
The rollout of all 5000 sensors is set to be completed in June 2026, but the program has already seen its first success in September 2025, when a Spectra sensor installed in Ōtara’s wastewater network detected a blockage and prevented its first overflow.
Watercare’s crew were able to respond the same day the blockage was detected and immediately get to work removing it.
Mr Moore said that without the sensor, the utility would have been responding to an overflow instead of preventing one.
“They’re very good at looking at patterns and predicting when a blockage is forming so that we can get to it before it becomes a bigger problem,” he said.
But for Watercare, this is only the start of its journey.
“What we’re looking at for the future is how we can use these predictive capabilities to take real-time control of the network.”
“Once we start being able to analyse the data, we’re going to unlock an awful lot of things,” Mr Moore said.
“You often start off with one vision but then everyone gets energised and we start coming up with more ideas.
“If we can work with suppliers who are like that, then we can all bounce good ideas off one another and move forward a lot faster.
“Innovation breeds innovation, and I’m quite excited to see where we can end up.” U
