Telefónica Tech, a Spanish telecommunications company, plans to install 130,000 smart water meters for the Canal de Isabel II water utility.

Telefónica Tech will be in charge of the supply and communications service for Canal de Isabel II, which expects to deploy 650,000 water meters with integrated NB-IoT communication over the next three years, in collaboration with Contazara, Spain’s largest maker of electronic meters.

According to Telefónica Tech studies, smart metering decreases water leakage by 40%, cuts operating and maintenance expenses by 20%, and boosts customer satisfaction by up to 60%.

This sort of meter enables remote reading and automatic collection of user consumption statistics. These devices include NB-IoT connectivity, which allows for higher coverage reach and penetration in areas like basements, manholes, and meter rooms.

Once the data reaches the management platforms, artificial intelligence is used to create analytical models that enable predictive maintenance, which leads to improved water supply efficiency, early detection of network leaks, control of unauthorized consumption, or identification of low consumption in at-risk groups to alert social services of possible critical situations, among other benefits.

The goal of Canal de Isabel II is to improve water supply service, protect water resources from inefficient use, and provide better service to its consumers. Users will transition from bi-monthly to hourly readings, which will give them more information and a more accurate understanding of their usage.

They will be able to monitor possible anomalous consumption in greater depth and will have comparative consumption patterns and even customized savings models at their disposal in this way.

Pascual Fernández, CEO of Canal de Isabel II, said: “Canal de Isabel II’s Smart Region Plan strengthens the leadership of our public company and allows us to advance in two essential lines of our company: proximity to users, offering them more and better services and information; and sustainability, helping us to increase efficiency in the management and exploitation of our most important resource: water.”

Telefónica Tech and Contazara are technological partners who collaborate and develop NB-IoT technologies for water control and management, as well as being in charge of the Canal de Isabel II supply and communications service.

“We are very proud that Telefónica Empresas has been awarded this project for Canal de Isabel II, making us their technology partner in this transformation they are carrying out,” said Gonzalo Martín-Villa, CEO of IoT and big data at Telefónica Tech. “With this agreement we consolidate our position as leaders in providing NB-IoT connectivity, guaranteeing an open, comprehensive, scalable and secure solution with devices that make it possible and that have been fully tested in our TheThinx laboratory.”

Isaac Navarro, CEO of Contazara, added: “This project represents the consolidation of the strategy of mass deployment of smart water meters with NB-IoT communication in Spain, the two most advanced and reliable technologies in the world, positioning Canal de Isabel II, Contazara and Telefónica Tech at the global forefront of digital and sustainable water management.”

In addition to reducing water usage, remote and centralized maintenance reduces travel to the actual location of the meters, which has an impact on both the bottom line and the carbon footprint.

Furthermore, NB-IoT-connected tele-reading devices have been designed with batteries that optimize power use and last up to twelve years, lowering energy consumption and increasing the device’s lifetime by years.