Effectiveness of water accounting in the Baltic: the role of digitalization in resource management

Our team of the European-Ukrainian Council for Cooperation and Development organized a working meeting with Oleksiy Mazur, the housing and communal services department of the Baltic City Council, deputy mayor Fedor Molodets, director of Communal enterprise Baltavodokanal Alik Tabachnyk, our partners from the Regional Development Agency of the Odesa region Serhiy Kononenko, Yevgeny Korobenko, executive director TVO Group and Igor Guzenko, Director of Development of TVO Group.

The main topic of discussion is the scaling of the pilot project on digitalization of water accounting in multi-apartment buildings using LoRaWAN technology.
Water losses in the city of Balta amount to 43 percent due to an insufficiently effective accounting system, which violates the financial stability of the water utility and increases the financial burden on the city.
This technology will provide the city and residents with accurate and transparent accounting of consumption, cost reduction and prompt detection of leaks. With remote readings, residents don’t need to manually transmit data, and utilities can respond more quickly to malfunctions. This will contribute to the saving of water and resources, as well as increase the efficiency of management. Transparent accounting will reduce errors in billing, and ease of use will improve the quality of life of residents. As a result, such counters will help the city provide reliable and modern service for its citizens.

Results and prospects: The pilot project demonstrated that water losses per month were reduced by 20% due to accurate metering. In order to expand this project to the entire city, it is necessary to attract additional funding. Our organization, together with partners, will continue to work on the development and search for extra-budgetary sources of funding for the implementation of the project on effective water accounting in the city of Balta.