Compulsory smart meters crucial to fight ‘real and growing risk’ of drought, experts warn
By Paul Homewood
h/t Paul Kolk
Smart water meters must be made compulsory across all households to protect the UK against climate change, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has warned.
The government agency is urging ministers to ramp up the rollout of devices, as it claims water supplies were becoming one of the country’s biggest challenges.
Without smart water meters, the NIC said the UK is at heightened risk of drought.
In its latest report, NIC officials said water companies should have the power to compel all homes to accept smart meters as part of a “concerted campaign to reduce water demand”.
The UK used about 10bn litres of water a day in 1960 but that has since risen to around 15bn.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/16/force-smart-meters-households-risk-water-shortages/
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Seems sensible to meter the water supply after all purification, storage, water network maintenance, and pumping aren’t free so people that use more should pay more.
Metering is fine. But why smart?
It is smart meters they are talking about so they can shut you down when they want.
Water companies are prohibited by law from disconnecting your water supply.
Smart water meters can not turn off the supply anyway as they do not control the stop tap. The smart part is automatically reporting meter readings without the need for a manual reading.
You know they are changing the rules as they go along. Why else would they want smart meters. They know usage by the state of the reservoirs.
“Smart” meters will simply enable variable pricing. Water a bit on the scarce side (Because we’ve paid billions to share holders rather than fix the leaking pipes)? Then each household will have its ration & then will be surcharged. Great if you’re a single person, who’s concreted over their back & front gardens, tough if you’ve got children, a nice garden or you’re one of these “Toffs” with a few horses.
I recently asked my waterco when was the last time they built a reservoir; ‘not since 1970’ … apparently their records do not go back further than that.
It strikes me that had they built more reservoirs [and I appreciate that reservoirs are not favoured by watermelons], the supply of water may be more manageable today.
But we are where we are today. We need more reservoirs [certainly in the South East of England], and another look at moving water from the wetter parts of the UK to the drier ones.
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I believe water companies have been trying to build new reservoirs for many years but are continually being blocked in planning. Blocked often by the Environment Agency and Natural England.
The recent Liberal government cancelled planned new reservoirs as the EU Water Directive made water a scarce resource. As far as I know the legislation is still in place but even if it was repealed I can hardly see the near bankrupt water companies rushing to build them.
Per head of population the South East is drier than Morocco, so it makes great sense to allow mass immigration here doesn’t it. In the same way the leftie slime whine about a lack of housing and can’t see how allowing millions to come here has an effect on housing. Also our bloated university system takes away a large amount of low end rental properties in our cities.
Yep.
Abingdon Reservoir – Thames Water: Upper Thames (Abingdon) Reservoir Plan
Lincolnshire: Anglian Water reservoir plans prompts fears – BBC News
Did you ask the follow up question how many they had closed and drained.
Don’t worry south Lincolnshire is getting a love big new reservoir all for the south east.
Also Anglian water are building a massive pipe line to take water from north Lincolnshire this time and piping it down again to the south east. Although they don’t have the workers and it seems to of stopped.
Population has also increased from around 50 million to 70 million (+ illegal immigrants). Calculations of chemical safety in the environment use 200 litres per person per day – I doubt usage has changed much. My conclusion is “smart” meters are needed because of a lack of investment in necessary infrastructure.
My water meter is permanently flooded. Good luck with making that “smart.”
I have had a water meter for years, it used to report when the water company van was in the street with a RFID tag, but it has stopped working (battery flat).
I think they have something called a valve in the water system which they can turn on/off.
I have a strong impression that the Infrastructure Czar Sir John Armitt is bonkers.
He has suggested that when gas is switched off all the pipes will have to be removed
He is correct as when the gas flow stops the pipes will present an explosion hazard as they will contain gas and air. The other option would be to purge the pipes or fill them with water.
The population was 52 million in 1960. It is currently 68 million. That’s about a 30% increase in water usage. I am wondering why (and perhaps somebody could enlighten me) why consumption has increased 50% in that time. Especially given the dramatic decrease in industrial activity since then?
Also, Paul, I must be misinterpreting something here, but how do water meters make us more vulnerable to droughts? Is that not what NIC have said, or am I totally misreading the situation?
Another question – does ‘consumption’ include water leaks, burst water mains etc etc, which seem to be a bit more frequent due to lack of maintenance maybe?
The politicians and civil servants are trying to keep the real figures hidden .But Distribution companies and supermarkets etc know that the population is more like 80 million.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/city-eye-facts-on-a-plate-our-population-is-at-least-77-million-5328454.html
So an increase in water consumption of 50% or over should be expected . But we should not expect the people running such things to be competent in doing their jobs .
Don’t we use more water per person as well? When I grew up in the 50s we had a bath once a week and the rest of the time a flannel wash standing up by the sink. Now everyone has at least one shower a day.
I was thinking that we also have more things to use water on. Not every family had a car to wash every weekend now it’s 2 or 3, do we wash clothes more frequently, more garden watering.
We do use more water, no longer a bath once a week, often shared if you’ve a few kids, showers once or twice a day now, washing machines, dishwashers, multiple cars per family.
The UK has wet temperate weather, primarily because the UK is an island on the edge of the Atlantic. The amount of water the UK population uses is miniscule compared to the amount of water that falls freely from the sky onto the UK.
It can be claimed that humans don’t generally use much water on an individual basis, we only generally borrow it !
When I said a 30% increase in water usage, I meant population – sorry
UKs fragmented Victorian water system needs joining together. Currently you cant get water from the Severn region to the Thames region. Nor from wales or Northumbria to the south, nor lake district to birmingham. When it was nationalised the Govt spent zero to upgrade it and since going private no moves to form a national grid have been made since the Govt – Ofwat hasnt pushed for it (not in Thames water’s interest to allow its customers to be supplied by Severn-Trent).
The Victorians designed a grid using the canals and rivers as aquaducts to move the water. Just a few key joins and pumping stations missing. The victorians didnt need a grid. We now have double the popn and still no moves to build infrastructure.
UKs fragmented Victorian water system needs joining together.
There was a costed proposal issued in the 1970s for a national water grid; the proposed cost was not particularly substantial, possibly lower than the cost of an AGR nuclear power station if I recall correctly.
However, there is apparently a potential environmental issue with a national water grid: the different chemical characteristics of water throughout the UK. My limited understanding is that the different pH values for water from different areas can create issues, although I don’t know what these issues are !
Sounds like BS to me. A National water grid would be a good public investment, unlike HS2.
We have the Thames Water Ring main which was a good idea. Also I read recently that there was a plan to transfer water from Wales to the South East using rivers. Not sure how that would work but I think it involved pumping water into the say the Severn and then extracting it further down.
Gamecock considers this a good thing. Riparian rights should be respected. If you don’t have enough water in the Thames region, MOVE to a region that has what you need. Water availability SHOULD BE a limiting factor on growth of cities. Taking someone else’s water is not an ethical solution.
Sorry, I’m going mad – I meant after the comment in the article ,Without smart water meters, the NIC said the UK is at heightened risk of drought, I’m assuming they mean less vulnerable to the effects of drought, not making us less vulnerable to actual droughts!
nothing to do with a seventy million population, no new reservoirs and water leaks. Nothing at all to do with those things.
it is disappointing the author was prepared to write the article without bothering to check rainfall data and journos are too lazy to check.
The drought they want to protect against (and the only one it will protect against) are wind droughts or Dunkelflaute. They can’t control the weather so they have to shut down demand.
looking forward to a drought in North Wales
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
looking forward to a drought in North Wales
Many years ago, Welsh Water ran an advertising claim which mentioned the lack of water in Wales.
I see that someone declared a drought in Wales in 2022. Unfortunately, the incompetence that achieves such a perceived situation does not defy belief.
I Loved a humour book by Jasper FForde – it had a fake advertisement in the back: “Holiday in Wales! Not ALWAYS raining!”
The back of my envelope suggests that water companies take a very small percentage of the water that falls freely from the sky onto the UK, It is such a small percentage that I currently doubt my arithmetic; perhaps someone else can use the back of a different envelope?
UK surface area = approx 250,000 square kilometres
UK average rainfall = approx one metre per annum.
UK water companies supply approx 15 billion litres of water per annum, mentioned about 1/3 of the way down this webpage: https://www.water.org.uk/protecting-environment/climate-change
..back of my envelope..
…suggests that the total amount per annum of water that UK water companies supply is approx 0.006% of the total amount of water that falls on the UK per annum. It seems an impossibly small fraction, which suggests an error on my part.
If 0.006% is ballpark and if there is a tap water shortage then there is obviously not a lack of water freely falling from the sky but there is a lack of sufficient fully operational systems to capture and transport water.
Anyone else got a percentage figure ?
Water metres in West Scotland? Surely you jest.
Don’t understand. How does a meter, smart or dumb prevent drought?
That was my first thought too. Can smart meters make it rain? Are these magic smart meters? Perhaps they can call on our ancestors to make rain.
If the NIC spent less time worrying about the climate change agenda, and more time about vital infrastructure, then things might not be falling apart as they so evidently are:
I’m no expert at teknology nor elektrikery but exactly HOW can a ‘smart water meter’ work ?. Most are at the bottom of the valve hole (ours is 18″ below ground surface) and no adjacent electric supply. Common sense suggests it’s yet another ‘klymut’ waste of our money.
So surely ANOTHER Juracell Battery Jobbie, how else will these meters function ?
Think of how the population has grown in the last 30 years. Someone please
help me out here, but to my knowledge there has not been a new reservoir built
in this country for around 40 years, but many have been decommissioned,
There is a seemingly direct link between the 1989 privatisation of water
companies in the UK and the ceasing of new reservoirs being built. Is the
decline of water for domestic use (and don’t forget quality) a result of
private water companies filling their pockets and not our baths?
Now they want to get more money out of us and control what we use due to
their lack of investment.
Water Meters are largely located outside domestic premises underground currently so no way they are going to make them smart easily unless they move them somewhere where they can communicate. Never going to happen at scale.