Bucharest water utility invests in modern water metering

Apa Nova Bucureşti (ANB), the largest water utility in Romania, has selected the USA based company Itron to modernize its water metering system. ANB, which serves 2 million customers, is a subsidiary of the Veolia concern.

Over the next four years, ANB will install Itron’s water meters for high-use customers and multi-family buildings, which will allow the utility to improve the management and conservation of water resources. According to Water World, ANB will use the new water meters to improve the accuracy of billing to enhance customer service in Bucharest.

In March 2000 the municipality of Bucharest entered into a public private partnership contract (PPP) for the operation of its water and sewerage systems. Since 2000 water services in the city of Bucharest have improved due to renewing pipes and pumps of the outdated water infrastructure system. Operating new pumps (Grundfos) resulted in a 70 per cent decrease of energy use.

Europe

The European Commission is aiming at introducing cost-effective pricing of water in all European Member States through installing water meters, but hasn’t yet the legal possibility to do so. According to the Water Framework Directive (WFD, Article 9) the pricing of water is still the responsibility of individual member states.