The Smart Water Challenge, started in November last year, has seen more than 19-million litres of water saved at Western Cape schools.
This result has been achieved through the introduction of the first 20 smart meters, which were installed during the December holidays.
On average, the 20 schools are saving 200 000 litres per day, which has resulted in a money saving of more than R840 000.00.
The first 20 schools have completed the first stage of the initiative, which is maintenance.
Another 55 schools have been equipped with the smart meters so far, and they will go through the maintenance stage in the coming weeks.
If the current trend continues, the Smart Water Challenge will reach its goal of saving 1-million litres of water per day with 100 schools.
The initiative is a partnership between the Shoprite Group, remote intelligent and control soluitions startup Bridgiot, Cape Talk and Pragma Asset Management. Flickswitch has partnered with Bridgiot in providing SIM management services at no charge.
The water-monitoring device used is called the Dropula and was co-developed by Bridgiot and Prof Thinus Booysen, who is a lecturer in electronic and electrical engineering at Stellenbosch University.
The Dropula water meters work by transmitting user-friendly consumption information to an Internet dashboard and users are notified of any unexpected usage patterns via SMS and email.
Dropula uses Flickswich’s prepaid SIMcontrol solution, which enables the water meter data SIM cards to be monitored remotely through a cloud-hosted platform, which allows centralised management of large number of SIMs. Flickswitch specialises in prepaid services for M2M and IoT applications.
“From the early stages of Bridgiot’s Smart Meter development, Flickswitch has been very excited about its potential to drive social impact,” says Kees Snijders, MD of Flickswitch. “No-one could predict the scale of the current drought in the Western Cape, but using technology to curb the impact is a quick-win solution.
“With the help of Flickswitch’s SIMcontrol service, the smart water meters can be monitored remotely and provide realtime data of how much water and money has been saved at each school. This allows learners to see the day-to-day effect of their water saving behaviour.”
Prof Booysen believes that technology is at the forefront of addressing social issues. “The youth are the ones that need to understand the value of fresh water. Using technology, they now have a way to see what impact they can have,” he explains. “Through the benevolent support of partners like Flickswitch, we are able to affordably help schools save a lot of water and money, and raise awareness.”
The Smart Water Meter Challenge is open to any school in the Western Cape. They can sing up http://schoolswater.co.za/.