Water meters will soon be equipped with Automated Meter Reading systems (AMRS) to ensure more accurate bills are sent to customers and wastage of water is reduced.
The systems, which total approximately US$2M, will be placed on existing meters, according to Managing Director of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), Dr. Richard Van West-Charles.
He explained that the company currently reads meters with employees moving from one residence to the other. However, “in some cases, (GWI) has had errors of transcription from the meter to the notes to the data entry,” he said.
The AMRS the Managing Director noted, “allows you to walk through and read automatically.”
Speaking at the company’s end of year press conference on Monday, Dr. West-Charles noted that the AMRS will also complement smart meters which the company piloted on the East Coast of Demerara in 2018.
The smart meters improve the speed at which meters are read.
Fifteen thousand meters were installed in communities on the East Coast of Demerara purchased with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2018.
The company will be purchasing another 15,000 smart meters with funding from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) for installation in Georgetown in 2019.
The smart meters also notify GWI if there are any leaks in the home in order to deal with the wastage of water.
“In essence it is a sustainable solution, bringing greater efficiency for the customer and the company.”
“Where they have to read, meter readers will be going with tablets and it makes it then easy to upload the data and reduce the delay in the printing of your bills and the distribution of your bills,” Dr. West-Charles added.
Guyana became a member of the IsDB in 2017 and it was announced last year that the country stands to access US$900 million over the next three years.
The company is also working to update its customer information and billing system.
GWI earned over $4B in 2018, a 10% increase from last year, as a result of its increase in fixed charges and payments by defaulting customers. This sum the company hopes to use in improving its services in 2019.