Europe Smart Water Meter Market Trends

• Interoperability and open standards: One of the top priorities is interoperability between data systems, communications, and meter hardware. Lack of standards hampers large scale smart metering adoption. Efforts are ongoing to define open standards at every layer to allow components from different vendors to seamlessly integrate. Open architectures also prevent vendor lock-in and provide flexibility to water utilities.
• Advanced analytics and actionable insights: Smart water meters generate huge amounts of granular data. Recent years have seen the application of advanced analytics like machine learning to garner actionable insights from raw data. These include predictive modeling for demand forecasting, clustering to identify leakage zones, anomaly detection, and segmentation of customers. Such analytical capabilities help utilities maximize the ROI of smart metering.
• Cybersecurity enhancements: Smart water metering networks contain critical infrastructure, which makes them vulnerable to cyberattacks. Cybersecurity is a major concern impeding adoption. To mitigate risks, manufacturers are incorporating security features like data encryption, access controls, and remote software updates. Standards bodies are also working towards cybersecurity recommendations for smart metering systems.
• Transition to service-based business models: Vendors are transitioning from pure-play manufacturers to service-driven business models. This includes providing managed services, active monitoring and maintenance of meter networks, deploying analytics dashboards and mobile apps, and even building connectivity infrastructure. These value-added services beyond basic meter hardware deliver higher revenues.

Figure 1. Europe Smart Water Meter Market Size in US$ Bn