The municipality aims to replace the current water meters used in apartments in Chisinau with high precision and distance reading radio meters. Such meters will be set up this year in 100 apartment buildings with the biggest difference between the consumption measured by the individual dwellers’ meters and the common block meter, IPN reports.
Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca told a news conference that the losses of water during the last 20 years came to hundreds of millions of lei. During one year alone, the losses are estimated at 50 million lei, of which only 30 million are recovered by distributing the missing volume among consumers. The old water meters can be manipulated by some consumers. The access to apartments for reading the meters is another problem. The new meters enable to precisely take the readings from a distance.
Veronica Herta, delegated director of SA “Apa-Canal Chisinau”, said such meters were installed in 2013 within a pilot project that covered five apartment buildings. In three of these, the metered consumption was almost exact, with an insignificant difference of 0.98%.
Veronica Herta also said that the new system will enable to take the readings without entering the apartment. The radio meters have antimagnetic protection and can detect losses of water from defective installations. For example, if a dweller is away and a leakage occurs during 8-12 hours, the operator that reads the meter will inform the supplier’s intervention teams.
The new system will enable to use two meter reading methods – by a responsible person with the assistance of a special radio within 300 meters during 20-30 minutes in the whole block, and by an automatic meter reading system, through GSM, Internet or optical fiber, and the information will be stored on the server of “Apa-Canal Chisinau”. The municipality is for the second method.
The meters will be installed at the expense of the water supplier, at a cost of about 5 million lei. A sum of €8 million is needed to set up new meters in all the about 260,000 apartments of Chisinau. Negotiations will be held with foreign partners to obtain financing for this project.
