Accurate measures

Homeowners are expressing a preference for consumption-based water billing.

Edward Scalpello, head of sales and marketing at Diehl Middle East, explains why ultrasonics are taking over from mechanical metering, and how technology could revolutionise the way utilities bill for our water.

Founded in the German town of Wroclaw in 1862, Neptun started out producing fittings for water and gas installations; some years later, having developed and produced the world’s first Woltman bulk water meter that same company, now Diehl Metering, is at the forefront of metering technology across the world.

“We’ve been making water meters for 140 years,” says Edward Scalpello, head of sales and marketing, “but they’re a little bit different today than the ones we were producing 140 years ago.”

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He’s right, too. With meters covering water, thermal energy, gas and electricity and a variety of innovative automatic meter-reading technologies, the company’s factory is still in Germany, but it supplies meters to some of the Middle East’s leading developments and utility companies.

“We’re using some really sophisticated technology,’ says Scalpello, “including ultrasonics for efficient and high accuracy readings. Accuracy is important; if you have an inaccurate meter, the consumer doesn’t know whether they’re spending the right amount of money, and the utility company doesn’t know if it’s charging the correct amount.”

Having captured an estimated 50 to 60 per cent of the UAE’s district cooling metering market, the company is aware that metering is a controversial topic in the region, especially with the new Strata law that’s seeing the maintenance of developments handed to homeowner associations.

Combined with advances in equipment and changes in attitude that have seen a recent emphasis on consumption-based metering, companies such as Diehl are taking steps to ensure the technology is widely available.

“Homeowner associations are made up of household owners; they could be bankers or shopkeepers, but they’re not metering or chilled water specialists,” says Scalpello.

“Suddenly they’ve been given a legal responsibility to manage an apartment block and they’ve got no experience, so we’re trying to educate people into what’s available and how it all works.”