Global Omnium: Transforming From Conventional To Smart Water

Global Omnium, one of Spain's largest water utilities, has gone through a remarkable digital transformation over the past two decades - upgrading from conventional meters to an advanced smart meter network of over 550,000 fixed network smart meters. This journey provides valuable lessons for any water utility looking to modernize its operations and capitalize on the latest innovations in smart metering and data analytics.

Key Lessons Learned:

• Realizing the Need: High costs for meter readers, difficulty accessing meters, rampant tampering and fraud, and customer complaints drove Global Omnium to look for a better solution beyond conventional quarterly meter readings.
• Choosing the Right Technology: Global Omnium tested different hardware vendors looking for meters with long battery life, open data protocols to enable integration, end-to-end encryption, and tamper resistance. A multi-vendor approach reduced risk.
• Structured Deployment: A phased deployment strategy first targeted city centers and high-volume consumers, expanding outwards. This enabled controlled costs and the building of operational expertise.
• Integrating the Data: A data-centric architecture with vendor-agnostic integration allows data from all meters to be accessed through a single homogenous dataset. This unlocks value through apps like usage forecasting, leak detection, and customer services.
• Managing the Network: Continuous testing and monitoring across vendors allows performance comparisons. Structured, cost-controlled deployment enables steady network expansion. Data versatility fosters an open innovation ecosystem.

Global Omnium's pioneering smart meter deployment has transformed operations and services. Now Global Omnium's proprietary GoAigua technology, through a partnership with Xylem, has evolved into Xylem Vue powered by GoAigua - an integrated software and analytics platform enabling water utilities worldwide to digitally transform.