As capital programs accelerate across the water sector, utilities are being reminded about the value of data-driven insights to help manage costs.
In 2025–26 its estimated that annual capital expenditure across Australia’s largest water utilities will hit more than $12 billion a year – double what it was in 2022.
According to the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), this is a trend that is only expected to continue over the coming decade as property developments in growth areas come online and old assets are replaced.
While the water sector has known that this uplift in expenditure was coming, the homes and businesses that will fund it through water charges may not be as prepared.
Data is key
According to Intellihub General Manager of Smart Water, Inge Diamond, data driven insights on both sides of the meter are the key to helping water utilities and their customers manage the impacts of this once in a generation investment cycle.
“We’ve been working with Hunter Water in New South Wales on digital metering solutions to help both business and residential customers better understand their water usage and costs,” Ms Diamond said.
“We can help save millions of litres of water across a customer base by detecting leaks, but the real opportunity is in the insights gained by water providers through data.
“Those insight can help direct investment where it’s most needed.”
Ms Diamond is a water engineer who made the move into the data driven side of water management with Intellihub after realising the benefits of being able to deploy at scale.
She said that better leveraging data from a digital network can reduce capital expenditure for new water infrastructure by as much as 20 per cent.
“Knowing how to use the data in complex systems is the key. I’ve helped hundreds of large commercial and industrial customers access and understand their data to drive efficiency.
“Now I have the opportunity to work with Intellihub to implement solutions over much larger networks.”
From smart energy to smart water
Intellihub is a new player in smart water, but it has deep roots in the energy sector where it plays a leading role in leveraging smart technology.
Smart meter controls and data insights are driving the uptake of consumer devices and virtual power plants that allow renewable energy to be injected into the grid with lightning speed to address frequency and voltage imbalances.
The distribution providers can therefore drive better network management, reduce network congestion and improve outage management for customers.
“We’re now bringing parallel solutions and insights to the water sector,” Ms Diamond said.
“We take care of the difficult part, which is building and deploying the solution, so that water utilities can move more quickly to the stage where they are leveraging data from their smart network.
“The ongoing benefit is that demand is reduced, and infrastructure can be more accurately sized.
Ms Diamond said the sheer scale of investment needed across the water networks provides an opportunity for alternate funding models.
“Our metering-as a-service model helps utilities free up capital for the major infrastructure projects. It offers the flexibility to align the digital delivery model with a water provider’s strategic aims. That could be the management of customer demand or reduction of bursts through pressure management.
“This supports everyone’s overall goal of leaving more water in nature.”
For more information, visit intellihub.com.au
