Europe Under Water Pressure: Brunata Launches Joint European Water Solution At Enlit

Water stress already affects one in three Europeans every year. When several hundred European utilities gather at Enlit Europe in Vienna, Brunata will use the event to highlight an area that still lags behind the energy sector: the digitalisation of Europe’s water supply.

Europe has a water problem, and the pressure is growing. Around one in three Europeans and 30 percent of the continent’s land area are affected by water stress every year, while climate change is expected to make drought and water scarcity more widespread.

When Europe’s utility sector gathers at Enlit Europe in Vienna on 10-12 November, cleantech company Brunata will therefore use the event to put water at the top of the agenda. For the first time, the company will launch a comprehensive European utility solution designed to support both small and large water utilities with digital metering, monitoring and operations.

The timing is no coincidence. By 2030, the EU aims to improve water efficiency by at least 10 percent while also working to accelerate the digitalisation of the water sector.

– For many years, energy has been regarded as a resource that we need to measure, monitor and use as efficiently as possible. In many parts of Europe, we have not come nearly as far with water. That is becoming increasingly difficult to justify as water stress evolves from a Southern European problem into a broader European challenge, says Kristian Voldby Olsen, CEO of Brunata International.

One European solution for very different water utilities

At Enlit, Brunata will launch B.One Utility Solution for the first time as a common concept across the company’s European markets. What is new is not the underlying technology - it has existed for years. The novelty lies in bringing different levels of digitalisation together in a single European model capable of serving both smaller water utilities without their own digital specialists and large utilities that want to operate the infrastructure themselves.

B.One complete brings metering, communication, platform and operations together in a single solution, while B.One element suite enables larger utilities to build and manage more of the system themselves.

– If digital water metering requires a large IT department, the transition will simply be too slow. Europe’s utilities vary enormously, which means the technology must also be accessible to smaller local water utilities. That is precisely the challenge we want to address at Enlit, says Kristian Voldby Olsen. He continues:

– Europe does not lack the technology needed to gain far greater control over water consumption. The key now is to put that technology to work in many more utilities. The water sector is facing the digital transition that the energy sector has already been through.

Water will be the next major digitalisation challenge

Brunata’s launch comes as the EU is placing digital water infrastructure higher on the political agenda. The European Commission’s forthcoming action plan will, among other things, seek to increase the use of smart sensors and meters and make European water management more data-driven.

The development is thus moving towards continuous data that can make it possible to detect anomalies and respond more quickly - a digital transition the energy sector has already undergone.

– We cannot meter our way out of Europe’s water scarcity. But neither can we manage an increasingly strained resource effectively if we do not know how much water is being used and where it is being lost. That is where digitalisation needs to make a difference. At Enlit, we therefore want to help make water a natural part of the discussion about Europe’s future utility infrastructure, says Kristian Voldby Olsen.

Brunata is a European cleantech company and part of the German-owned Brunata-Minol-Zenner Group. The company provides smart meters, consumption-based billing and data-driven solutions to property companies, housing associations, utilities and other private and public organisations. www.brunata.com