LONDON, UK, Nov. 23, 2010 -- Major Australian water utility Yarra Valley Water has signed an agreement with UK-based Teccura to help identify commercial properties which are being under-billed for their water supply.
As part of the contract, Teccura - a utility revenue analysis and recovery company - will act as consultants and identify any commercial sites that may be consuming more water than they are paying for, through "consumption prediction and site investigation and negotiation".
The aim is for Yarra Valley Water, which supplies water and sewage services to over 1.6 million people in eastern Melbourne, to identify any unbilled revenue across its portfolio of commercial customers.
It is hoped that the utility coulld recover the equivalent of between £5 million to £10 million over the course of a year by identifying where commercial customers should be paying a higher tariff.
Speaking to Water & Wastewater International (WWI), Kevin Kerrigan, CEO of Teccura, said: "During the complex end to end process that utilities carry out, from extraction to supply, there are small errors that accumulate across the value chain - these represent a significant amount of partial billing or under-billing."
The Australian contract is the first outside of the UK for the company, having recently announced an agreement with UK utility Yorkshire Water, as well as previous contracts including Thames Water and Southern Water.
Kerrigan told WWi that the company is now in discussion with water companies in the North American market, as part of the expansion outside of the UK.
The CEO added: "Commercial sites are consuming utilities' water but not paying for the true cost...at the moment everybody's rates are marginally higher because there are larger commercial enterprises out there not paying the true value of what they consume, which isn't fair."
Tony Kelly, managing director of Yarra Valley, said: “Across Melbourne, per capita water use is down 40% compared with the 1990s. Households and industry have worked hard to reduce water use despite increasing storages water is still a precious resource and we should all be accountable for the water used.”
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