> Sol Plaatje Municipality
Location: South Africa
Sector: Water & Sanitation Service
Product: Asset Management
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> Systems Implemented
Sol Plaatje (South Africa): Reduction and Control of UFW (Unaccounted for Water), including optimization & Master Plan
The city of Kimberley in South Africa, also known as the Diamond City, is the Capital of the Northern Cape Province. The Sol Plaatje Municipality (SPM) was established in 2000 when the Kimberley and Ritchie Municipalities were merged.
The Objective of the Non-revenue Water (NRW) Minimisation Project was to investigate and formulate and implement solutions to address the challenges. The study findings and recommendations were initially presented to the SPM Management. The NRW Audit revealed that 45% of all the water produced, (on average 75 ML/day) was lost in leakage in the system, 6.6% was wasted or lost in internal leaks by consumers who were not paying their bills, 10.1% was used by unauthorised consumptions and 7.1% was not recorded due to lack of meter readings or problematic meters. In fact only 26.2% of the water produced was properly metered, invoiced for and paid for by consumers.
The rehabilitation/ optimisation plans were presented as a Commercial Rehabilitation programme and a Network Optimization programme. The Commercial rehabilitation programme identified every single connection, property and plot (in the case of non-registered properties), the type of problem it exhibited and its contribution to an overall monetary loss by the Municipality of R 340,000 per day.
The Network Optimisation plan proposed minimal interventions estimated to cost about R 10 million that would render the network functional, both for present and future demands and properly reduce leakage by as much as 30% and reduce electricity costs from pumping by as much as 20%.
