Toowoomba Regional Council set out on a digital metering journey to identify leaks early and improve water security for the region.
Providing a secure water supply, maintaining network assets, driving operational efficiencies and improving outcomes for customers are the foundational challenges faced by every water authority.
Toowoomba Regional Council is certainly no exception to this rule, but the geographical conditions of its service area add an extra hurdle into the mix, namely the fact the region experiences short but intense rainfall events, followed by prolonged periods of drought.
“We know that we go into periods of not having much water, so water conservation has been really important to residents in the region for a long time,” Toowoomba Regional Council Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Strategic Water Planning and Capital Delivery, Dr Rebecca Vonhoff, said.
“Like everywhere else, our region is also facing an infrastructure cliff; we have pipes underground that are nearing the end of their useful life, and the reality is we cannot afford to dig up and replace every single one – we need to target our repairs.
“Putting all those factors together, it would just seem like a logical area for us to invest our resources in.”
With Toowoomba Regional Council’s analogue water meters also reaching the end of their lifespan, Council decided to explore how digital metering could help tackle these challenges and save water by updating these assets.
Going digital
Toowoomba Regional Council was looking for a solution that could reduce water loss and improve operations, provide customers with detailed consumption data, minimise bill shock, and deliver better demand management outcomes.
Before any of these benefits could be realised, however, Toowoomba Regional Council needed to understand the best pathway for its metering program, so it commissioned a review of its current meter-reading operations, enabling it to make informed decisions.
The review saw Toowoomba Regional Council assess six possible metering options against its needs. This allowed Council to clearly identify the solution that would deliver the best outcomes.
The best return on investment was determined to be NB-IoT with ultrasonic metering. This approach would see Toowoomba Regional Council replace all 20mm meters with NB-IoT-enabled ultrasonic meters throughout both Toowoomba City and outlying areas.
The solution included near real-time meter data and alarm monitoring, as well as an updated customer interface, and would be delivered in partnership with Optus, Iota Services and GreenBe.
Optus provided reliable and secure data transmission, GreenBe delivered the customer portal Toowoomba Water app, and Iota, a wholly owned subsidiary of South East Water, brought digital knowledge from South East Water, Cura™ ultrasonic meters, and the Lentic® operational IoT platform, to manage the meters and validate the data.
Cura ultrasonic digital meters provide daily water consumption data and early leak detection alarms to Toowoomba Regional Council staff and to residents subscribing to the GreenBe portal.
Lentic is an IoT platform that analyses meter data and integrates with Toowoomba Regional Council’s systems so Council can action leak alarms, use the consumption data for billing and share it with residents. The platform also feeds daily usage and leak alarms to the GreenBe customer portal to allow Toowoomba residents to monitor water usage and leaks in near real-time.
While the solution looked promising on paper, Cr Vonhoff said there’s always a risk in making a big investment decision.
“The officers came to the councillors with a proposal, and we said ‘this looks great, but we can’t just muck around with water, so we need to do a trial’,” Cr Vonhoff said.
This trial allowed Toowoomba Regional Council to test and prove the preferred solution before larger scale implementation.
Tried and tested
The trial commenced in July 2021, and over five months Toowoomba Regional Council deployed 2,000 digital water meters and tested the integration with its billing and customer engagement systems to identify where water savings could be made.
Cr Vonhoff said this trial would not have been possible without the support from the community.
“We have been so fortunate with our residents, because they don’t need to be told to conserve water. They are so mindful of it and that is incredibly helpful,” Cr Vonhoff said.
The advanced metering technology enables residents to view their usage data and set targets through the web portal and app. This allowed them to see which activities in their homes use the most water and identify potential leaks.
Toowoomba Regional Council also receives leak notifications from Lentic and can proactively inform customers of leaks so they can be addressed early – before bill shock.
“If there is a problem and there’s a leak somewhere in a resident’s system then they get a shock when they get their water notice. If people can have visibility and can check their water usage daily, it reduces the chance of that shock happening,” Cr Vonhoff said.
Lentic has displayed 13,838 continuous usage alarms between December 2022 and July 2024, and identified around 30ML of water leaks that would otherwise have gone undetected.
“On average, about 12 per cent of residents experienced a leak on their property. This suggested substantial improvements could be gained by giving approval for the smart water meters program to be rolled out more broadly,” Cr Vonhoff said.
“As a result of the trial, we were comfortable to move forward, because we saw that the water savings were in the order of 16 per cent, and that is such an enormous amount of water for us.”
Toowoomba Regional Council is now rolling out more than 68,000 digital meters across the network – including 3500 commercial meters – and expects to have full deployment completed by the end of 2025.
The larger scale rollout also includes the implementation of Iota’s Flow Lotic™ data logger, which connects to existing commercial analogue meters and enables data transmission through to the IoT platform – Lentic, providing business customers visibility of water consumption across sites at the main meter and sub-meter level.
Measuring success
The data from advanced meters provided Toowoomba Regional Council with a clear view of the network and enabled Council to pinpoint where investments would be most beneficial. Making operations more efficient also allowed Toowoomba Regional Council to remove the need for manual meter reading.
Having digital meters also means that Council will no longer have to contend with mechanical meter failure and will get a more accurate record of water use and any potential issues.
While the data generated from the meters enabled Toowoomba Regional Council to save precious water and control the network more efficiently, it also empowered Council to provide even better service to the community.
With near real-time access to water usage, Toowoomba Regional Council’s customer service team is equipped with the tools and knowledge to answer questions, provide better service and build trust among the community.
“People don’t particularly like change, and if you’re changing something like the water meters then there has to be good communication with the community about why you’re doing it,” Cr Vonhoff said.
“If there wasn’t community support, then we wouldn’t have proceeded. That’s where I really put my energy – I wanted people to see that this made sense for them.”
Cr Vonhoff said that it’s crucial to have a strong relationship and constant communication with the community.
“Be informed and then have the heart and the mind that you are going to meaningfully and genuinely talk to the community.
“If you’re going to do something new with a resource as precious as water, then make sure that it makes sense to you and that you have the answers for your community.”
Cr Vonhoff said making major investment decisions and planning for the network can be challenging because there are always going to be competing priorities.
“I think a good lesson that I’ve taken out of this going forward is, if you don’t sometimes take those big leaps, you’re just always kind of going to be playing whac-a-mole,” Cr Vonhoff said.
“There’s going to come these moments where you have to take a leap and do it in a smart way.”
For more information, visit iotaservices.com.au
Featured image: Cressbrook Dam – Toowoomba Regional Council’s main water source. Image: TRC.