Smart water metering presents itself as an effective solution to the challenges faced by the majority of European water utilities today, from extreme events induced by climate change to the need to replace an ageing infrastructure. Indeed, providing access to accurate data in real-time can help decrease operating costs and prioritize infrastructure investments, while also improving the daily management of networks and customer services.

By launching a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) procedure, the utilities involved seek to promote demand-driven research into new innovative smart meter solutions that fully cater to the needs of utilities (in terms of readability, battery lifetime, interoperability). The partners are currently preparing the call for tender, which should be published at the end of the year. It is foreseen that at least two of the solutions presented will be carried forward to the trial stage and be tested in pilot sites.

The consortium is led by a French association and is made up of 7 public water service operators and 6 expert entities.

The public water service operators are:
*Belgium: Compagnie Intercommunale Liégeoise des Eaux (CILE) and VIVAQUA (Hydrobru)
*Spain: Promedio
*France: Eau de Paris and Syndicat Des Eaux et de l’Assainissement Alsace-Moselle (SDEA) *Hungry: Budapest Waterworks (Vizmuvek)
*Italy: VIVERACQUA

The expert entities are:
*Europe: Aqua Publica Europea (APE)
*Expert person: Sara Bedin
*France: Office International de l’Eau (OIEau) and Université de Limoges (UNILIM) *Italy: Aragon Partners
*Spain: Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua (FNCA)

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