Smart meter market needs to be tapped

The National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Construction announced that by the end of 2015, China will implement a system of urban residents' ladder water prices. Industry analysts pointed out that the implementation of the ladder water pricing system will adopt a new water price measurement method, when smart water meter is expected to fully enter the thousands of households, and then led to the huge demand for smart water meters.

It is expected to open 50 billion smart meter market

According to the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment of a Stable Price System for Urban Residents" on January 3, issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on January 3rd, before the end of 2015, China's municipal cities should implement the residential water price system in principle and have the conditions for implementation. The formed town must also actively promote it.

The "Guidance Opinions" proposed that there should be no less than three levels of water in each step. The first-level water quantity is determined in principle according to the average monthly water consumption of the households covering 80% of resident households, ensuring the basic living water demand of the residents; the second-level water quantity is determined in principle according to the monthly average water consumption of households covering 95% of resident households, reflecting improvement and Improve the reasonable water demand of residents' quality of life; the first, second and third level water prices are arranged at a ratio of not less than 1:1.5:3, and the water shortage area should further increase the spread. The "Guiding Opinions" emphasized in particular that all localities must finish the transformation of one household by one deadline.

According to experts, China’s economy has achieved remarkable achievements in the past 10 years. City construction is changing with each passing day, but the development of the water meter industry in China is relatively slow. Manual meter reading based on mechanical water meters still dominates. In 2012, China's annual output of water meters was about 65 million units, and the output of smart meters was only 8 million units, accounting for less than 15% of domestic water meter production. Compared with the penetration rate of more than 80% of current domestic smart meters, and about 50% of the penetration rate of smart meters. The penetration rate of smart water meters is still very low.

Orient Securities analysts said that at present, China has more than 200 million water meters in operation online, and more than 90% are mechanical water meters. If 200 million mechanical water meters are all replaced by smart water meters, according to the smart water meter price of 250 yuan / only calculation, stock replacement market up to 50 billion yuan. At present, the annual output value of the water meter market in China is only 5 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that, from the expressions of recent policy parties and authoritative experts, the transformation of traditional water meters in the future is expected to enjoy policy subsidies. Orient Securities analysts said that this will undoubtedly accelerate the replacement of smart water meters. Assume that the average annual growth rate of water meter production in China will be 6%. If the smart meter penetration rate reaches 50% by 2020, the compound water meter growth rate will reach 25% from 2014 to 2020.

According to experts, the main difference between smart water meters and mechanical water meters is that the former focuses on electronic technology, while the latter focuses on mechanical technology. Usually, the latter is also a part of the former. By embedding application software and supporting equipment, intelligent water meters can automatically perform various functions such as copying, control, data storage, query, monthly settlement, meter reading and settlement, charge settlement, and report printing of water meter data, and classify and process the collected data. Complete all the complex work done by humans.

Need to break through bottlenecks such as technological transformation

Fu Tao, director of the Center for Water Policy Research at Tsinghua University, believes that the premise of realizing a stepped water price is a single water meter, which means that every household must have a meter for phonography, and the industry calls it meter reading to households. Read the meter to the home, in order to achieve the price of the ladder, or you can not know how much water each household. However, our country has basically not yet achieved 100% meter-reading cities.

Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, is one of the many cities in the country that promotes gradient water prices. However, there has been no significant change in the water use of residents before and after its implementation. Zhuo Hongfei, deputy director of the Nanchang Municipal Water Conservation Office, admitted that at present, the biggest obstacle to the promotion of water tariffs at all levels is that there is not a single water table for all households. Some water meters that have not been rebuilt have shown that a single unit of ten households can use it together. If the total quantity, if the large water meter is also charged according to the price of the ladder, the water fee for each household must be increased accordingly.

Not only that, there are still measurement barriers to the implementation of the ladder water price. Under current circumstances, the water company may only copy the table once in two or three months. However, if the price of water is stepped on, it will require more rigorous and accurate meter reading and charging. Fu Tao said that most of the newly-built communities now use pre-paid IC card water meters, which means that residents can buy a certain amount of water at a time. How long it takes for these waters to be mastered is the same price. It is difficult for a community using such a water meter to use the method of measuring the price of the ladder water, unless it takes more money to change the water meter of each household into a smart water meter.

It is understood that at present, traditional water meters are about 50 yuan each, and smart water meters are as high as 200 yuan each. Zhuo Hongfei pointed out: If the price of water is to be fully implemented, it is necessary to carry out the transformation of one household, but this is not a small expense, and it is difficult for the water company to bear the burden. The general residents are certainly not willing to bear the additional cost.