There is no secret about how to make money from selling water. It’s as simple as collecting the water, purifying and treating it to remove impurities, and then piping it to where it’s needed. Once it arrives, pass it through a meter to know how much has been used and then cost it.

But it is also not that simple because pipes break or get broken, meters malfunction, and the water ends up with people who have not paid for it or lost on the ground. It’s called non-revenue water.

Peter Biwott, the Managing Director, Eldoret Water Services Company (Eldowas),  says such wasted water accounts for about 39 per cent.

Overall, Kenyan water companies lose about 46 per cent of the water they pump, and that comes to about KSh11 billion a year.

The monetary loss aside, the water waste has an actual bearing on people’s lives.

About 20 million Kenyans, over 30 per cent of the population, do not have access to basic water services, and 21 counties lost more than 50 per cent of the water they produced, according to a 2021 report by the Water Services Regulatory Board (Wasreb).

To address this concern, earlier this year, Eldowas, in collaboration with Safaricom and EarthView Management Limited, a technology company to use smart meters to record and transmit consumption data.

In the partnership, Safaricom provides Narrow Band technology, where a SIM card is placed within the meter to transmit information. Once the information is transmitted, it is stored and analyzed on a software.

EarthView Management Limited, which provides e-billing solutions for efficient water management and sell smart water metering and purification equipment, are also key partners of Eldowas. They supply the water technology and expertise.

“Through leveraging on the Safaricom technology in terms of communication, we can then be able to get data on water from any point, any time,” says Charles Kaloki, the Managing Director of EarthView.

The project is anchored on three pillars.

First was putting in place systems to monitor the distribution with the 65,000 Eldowas water connections demarcated into 18 district metering areas to enable specific focus on pressure, volume and rationing through smart meters.

Flowing from that will be digital non-revenue water checks to figure out exactly where water is lost and fix it.

The third phase will see a pilot installation of smart meters starting with 20 per cent of the heavy water consumers, who generate 80 per cent of the revenue.

The effects have started trickling in.

Engineer Jimmy Kemboi, the General Manager Technical Services, Eldowas, said, “We’ve seen a significant increase in terms of revenues for the company, which is quite important for us as more revenue means we can be able to make water accessible to more people.”

For Safaricom, which targets to become a purpose-led technology company by 2025, the Eldowas smart metering project shows how well digital transformation can change things in the water sector by leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT).

“IoT has a lot of potential to grow. Possible uses are in the water sector, the energy industry and in agriculture, moving away from rain-dependent agriculture to smart agriculture,” says Jerry Taka, who heads the IoT department at Safaricom.

It is hoped that other public water companies in the country will be able to pick lessons from Eldowas and eventually be able to manage better water allocation, water distribution, water production and water usage more efficiently using technology.