Soho Apartments

Taranaki Street, Wellington.

Description: 326 residential apartments within a 15-level building plus 5 retail units.

This project involved the installation of 331 cold water and 330 hot water wireless RF meters retrofitted into a fully occupied apartment building. Following tender approval, we commenced this work in November 2011, completing the installation with minimal disruption to the water supply for the tenants. The meters are located in apartment ceiling cavities with meter readings and isolation valve activation done remotely via our wireless network. There are two data download options for this site, one being our standard data acquisition process via our portable PDA device; the other involving a higher level of service, which is achieved via our cloud-based website and smart metering software. Using our hand-held PDA allows capturing of meter data by simply walking around the building without accessing individual apartments. This process takes only 20 minutes and is completed with data downloads to an Excel file for billing to the tenants.

The second, more advanced option is made possible by 13 RF data collectors and one data concentrator installed in strategic locations within the building. This wireless equipment communicates with the meters at set intervals or following real time requests from authorised users (i.e. accounts managers or administrators) and automatically collects and securely transfers meter data to our cloud-based website. The smart metering software then enables various account management actions, such as tracking consumption trends, fault detection, invoicing and remote meter valve activation.

The tenant billing for this building has been outsourced by the body corporate to Easy Energy Ltd. This has resulted in reduced body corporate rates to Unit Proprietors (apartment owners) and the annual saving on body corporate fees was such that the capital cost on this project was recovered in just nine months. In addition to this saving, metering data has shown a minimum of 25% reduction in total water consumed over the last year and a similar trend has been observed in the volume of gas required to heat water, which is directly linked to the domestic hot water consumption (also metered). (Source – Easy Energy Ltd)

Docks Apartments

Quay Street – Auckland

Description: 221 residential apartments within a 4-tower, 7-level building plus 8 retail units.

The project was initiated and tendered by the body corporate to metering specialist companies with the intention of transferring the financial burden of the annual budgeted cold water cost from the body corporate to individual apartment residents directly.Commenced in November 2012, the project involved the supply and installation of 230 wireless cold water meters fitted into the ceiling cavity of each apartment, with new access panels fitted as required.

The work was completed on program on 31st January 2013 and it is estimated that, with Easy Energy taking over responsibility for the body corporate water cost, the total cost of the installation will be recovered within 14 months. This estimated payback makes for a convincing business case. Water consumption monitoring over the next year will enable us to determine also the extent of water (and cost) savings achieved.