Record- breaking one million Smart Meters installed by Morrison Water Services for Thames Water

At Morrison Water Services, we are thrilled to celebrate a significant milestone with the installation of over one million smart meters for Thames Water. We have been delivering an ambitious programme of street-by-street meter installations for the last eight years as part of Thames Water’s installation drive.

We have completed over one million installations since 2015 in both Greater London and the Thames Valley region. This has involved over 650,000 excavations within the confines of the city’s streets and attending 98.7% of customer appointments, including through the pandemic with its associated people and supply challenges. This year we’re helping the company install a further 78,000 smart meters across London and the Thames Valley.

The strategic importance of smart metering is undeniable, Thames Water supplies water to millions of households across the South East, an area under significant water stress due to high water demand and typically hotter and drier summers. Thames Water and other water companies in the South East must also meet future demand for water and protect the environment, including vulnerable rivers and chalk streams, by reducing the amount of water abstracted from groundwater sources.

Water is a precious resource and smart meters play a significant role in in helping customers to use water wisely. They also have the added benefit of helping customers detect leaks within their property, which account for around a third of leakage on the water network. Thames Water’s one million smart meters are helping to save 90 million litres of water a day, the equivalent of 36 Olympic sized swimming pools. The investment in state-of-the-art smart metering technology has allowed the processing of over 20 million readings a day, giving customers near real-time data. The data is critical in supporting customer to manage their water usage and bills. On average metered customers tend to use 12% less water.

David Tann, Morrison Water Services Area Director for Thames Water Metering, said: “We are very proud to support Thames Water with this industry-leading project and be part of the journey to help the industry provide a more sustainable supply of water to a growing population while protecting the environment. We have maintained our commitment to high quality, delivering what we promise.

“We are delighted to have achieved success for Thames Water customers through fantastic customer performance. Our dedicated call centre took over 533,000 customer calls over the period of a year, an average of over 820 calls every day.”

Mark Cooper, Head of Metering at Thames Water, said: “We’re committed to helping our customers use water wisely and our smart meters have been fundamental in reducing leaks and helping consumers to cut both their water and energy use.

“Thames Water has always championed the benefits of smart meters. Reaching over one million installations across our region is a huge milestone and is testament to our investment in new technology and commitment to protecting this precious resource.

“The near real-time data has given us insights into our customers’ water use, revealing when and where our customers’ use of water is changing. We’ve been able to adapt our plans and in 2024 we’ll be focusing our rollout efforts across the Thames Valley and Home Counties.”

Back to all.