Enemalta Corporation and the Water Services Corporation have been awarded the Malta Engineering Excellence Award for Innovation. This award is given out by the Chamber of Engineers to organisations or persons who have excelled in Innovative projects.

Minister Austin Gatt congratulated the utility companies for this achievement and commented that both Corporations and their employees have demonstrated their commitment to improve customer service, cut waste, increase efficiency and the reliability of the services they provide.

“More energy efficient households will be able to divert more of their budgets away from the cost of utilities and will reduce their carbon footprint and their negative contribution to climate change. Malta will be the first country in the world to do this. It will also be the first community of any size worldwide to use this technology to monitor the consumption of water which in our specific circumstances is very important given the scarcity of the resource and the energy that goes into generating and distributing it.”

The project was also recently presented as a best practice model for ‘smart cities’ at the Future Internet Forum of the EU convened in Stockholm.

In 2009 both Corporations entered into a strategic partnership with IBM to make Malta the first country in the world to build a nationwide smart grid. The Utilities will be replacing all current electricity meters with smart electricity meters and will be fixing a probe device to the present water meter, to permit similar functionality for both water and electricity metering and billing operations. Both solutions will share the same meter management system, enabling a streamlined and shared meter-to-cash process. As part of the programme both Utilities are in the process of replacing their legacy billing and Customer Information Systems with a shared solution platform which will support their billing, collections and customer contact functions. Moreover the solution will interface seamlessly with the Utilities’ Enterprise Resource Planning platform, supporting water production and distribution and electricity generation and distribution.

The new technology will bring immediate improvements in the quality of service the Utilities offer to their customers – no meter reader visits, bills issued on actual readings and day-by-day consumption breakdown information will be the norm for customers. Throughout the roll-out of the new smart meters, the project will address the high electricity and water losses in Malta and Gozo. Smart metering technology, coupled with the implementation of a leading Utility vertical Billing and Customer Relationship Management platform, will also enable the introduction of different billing platforms – such as electricity prepayment or differential contracts – which could provide energy-conscious customers with ways to reduce their electricity and water bills. The technology could also enable influencing consumption behaviour on a national scale, reducing peak demand and overall demand for electricity.

The project being carried out in Malta requires the modification of an established Smart Metering solution, by integrating the management of both electricity and water services at a meter data management level. In a world where water and energy scarcity is becoming a major issue, this has attracted substantial interest from various countries. Countries and foreign Utilities will be watching closely to determine whether this integrated solution approach can contribute to specific energy-efficiency targets.

The Utilities have already completed a pilot project of 5,000 installations. An analysis of this pilot is currently underway. The installation of all smart metering technology should be executed by 2012. During 2009 the Utilities have also been preparing for the introduction of new IT systems to support the new operations. The technology will enable the transformation of both Utilities’ customer interfacing functions, which is expected to materialise during 2010. Next year consumers will be seeing noticeable changes and improvements in customer care, billing and invoicing services. As from April next year the consumer will also be able to access several services through the web as part of a continuous transformation programme.

The presentation took place at the annual reception of the Chamber of Engineers at the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.

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