Review Of The Inaugural 2025 Conference

Uneven Readiness Is the First Barrier to Scale

Mohammed Abadayah, Associate Director at The Water Retail Company, set the tone with a clear view from the retail side of the market.

He spoke candidly about the uneven readiness across the country:

• Some wholesalers already provide bill-grade data
• Others have meters in the ground but no dependable data path
• This inconsistency creates national portfolio fragmentation for retailers

Mohammed also highlighted the practical realities of deployment — in Central London, meter swaps can require road closures, pushing installs back by three to six months. Transparent communication with customers is essential to avoid expectation failures.

Mohammed shared how they’ve streamlined deployments through site-by-site planning and shared mapping with utilities, reducing friction and uncertainty. He was unequivocal on where value is created: not in the meter itself, but in the data it generates — particularly for continuous flow use cases and near-term leak detection gains.

Across the event, contact data sharing surfaced as a universal challenge. Every wholesaler referenced it in some form. Mohammed underlined that, as a retailer, they are fully committed to gearing up for continuous flow notifications, sub-metering where appropriate, and multi-site coordination with landlords and facility owners — but they can only move at the speed of the data infrastructure they depend on.

10% Planning Can Prevent 90% of Pain

Harry Cowan, Head of Water at Indigo Water — a relatively new NAV — built on this foundation with a methodical perspective on joint planning. He spoke about establishing governance mechanisms to clarify ownership and handle variations across complex sites.

His message was clear: smart metering only works when communications design, site access, and planning discipline come first. He warned against rushing deployment, arguing that 10% of project life should be dedicated solely to planning, including selecting partners for the long haul. A simple rule: design for access from day one.

Drawing on lessons from across his career, Harry stressed the importance of burying mains, not meters, and ensuring comms resilience standards are built in from the start. He outlined dual-path designs — fixed LTE and NB-IoT — matched to site type and size, and called for attention to meter placement (“meter sandwiches”) to avoid future access delays.

He distilled his message into five practical takeaways:

1. Plan early.
2. Design for comms and access.
3. Pick partners wisely.
4. Educate customers.
5. Run post-install revenue reconciliation.

Access, Data, and Billing: The Hard Edges of Smart Metering

Rosie Rand, NHH Smart Metering and Demand Reduction Programme Manager at Thames Water, delivered one of the most practically grounded presentations of the event — joined by Brooklyn Francis, NHH Metering Data Services Manager. Together, they unpacked the front-line realities of deployment across highly varied sites.

They walked us through:

• Difficult-to-access and no-access sites — from heritage buildings in London to      multi-party commercial properties.
• Coordination headaches with councils, property owners, highways, and courts, particularly when customers refuse access.
• Why avoiding this route is critical — it’s resource-intensive and burns      deployment time.

Rosie and Brooklyn were refreshingly frank about persistent friction points:

• Missing or outdated contact data.
• Internal meter access issues.
• Customer diversity and tariff shocks from old under-recording meters.

Thames Water is tackling these issues with dual comms architectures, proactive monitoring, and structured data-sharing pilots, choosing pragmatism over grand promises. 

Their key takeaways:

1. Leverage NB-IoT flexibility.
2. Operationalise continuous flow early.
3. Standardise data exchange.
4. Segment customers intelligently.
5. Manage billing transitions carefully to protect trust.

Rollout Speed Is Dictated By Network And Workforce, Not Ambition

Gary Adams, Head of Metering Operations at Northumbrian Water, shared a frank and high-stakes case study on tackling water stress in one of the region’s most resource-vulnerable zones. The Essex and Suffolk programme is part of a larger NHH rollout strategy under a business expansion moratorium.

Key context:

• A large-scale smart meter rollout and targeted water efficiency initiative.
• Partnership with retailers and NHH customers to gain consumption insight, drive demand reduction, and strengthen resilience.
• A strategy to front-load water-stressed regions in AMP8, moving beyond      pilots in AMP7.

Key operational facts stood out:

• 85 % penetration achieved so far — the last 15 % is disproportionately      hard.
• 32 % abortive visit rate, largely from gatekeeper issues, missing contacts, or access barriers.
• LoRaWAN provides 80 % connectivity but not enough to eliminate revisits.
• Tech choices made today lock in exposure for 15 years due to meter life  cycles.

Gary summed it up directly: “All our effort, all our money, has gone into deployment, and we underestimated how hard it would be.”

Key takeaways from this case study:

1. Rollout speed is dictated by network and workforce, not ambition.
2. Early adopters are hard service without a slow, methodical rollout.
3. Communication with NHH customers is not like households.
4. The last 10 % of sites can consume 40–50 % of total cost.
5. Workforce capability is as critical as technology and funding.

Water Scan - Customer Transparency Matters

Neil Pendle, CEO of Waterscan, injected more operational realism into the conversation. His message was sharp: smart meters don’t eliminate manual checks. Continuous reconciliation is essential to prevent data drift and billing mistrust.

He warned against the illusion of “fit and forget.” Gaps between what a meter records and what a comms unit transmits are real and recurring — caused by device issues, comms latency, or installation quirks. Without disciplined field alignment, trust in the data erodes.

Neil emphasised:

• Teams must routinely align field reality with incoming data.
• Customer transparency matters — make sure they know what data they’re getting and when.
• Keep visual read capability alive as a control, even in smart rollouts.
• Treat smart metering as a living system, not a one-off installation.

United Utilities - Planning by Impact, Not Size

Kye Smith, NHH Smart Metering Deployment Engagement Lead at United Utilities, provided a clear operational logic for deployment— one built around segmentation and communications-first sequencing.

Where many utilities start by installing meters, United Utilities has flipped the order:

• Comms first, meters second wherever feasible.
• Prioritise high users (e.g., hospitals, data centres) where real-time      visibility is critical.
• Front-load medium and large meters within the first two years.
• Target small and unmeasured meters later, once comms coverage is stable.

Kye explained that this approach avoids stranded assets and ensures data value flows from day one. He also stressed:

• Segment by impact, not just size.
• Co-design communications rules with retailers and wholesalers.
• Build proactive tolerance bands and under-recording correction mechanisms     to pre-empt disputes.
• Effluent metering remains an unresolved industry gap that must be addressed in parallel.

His message was crisp: smart must be smart and loggable, and if comms-first isn’t feasible, AMR plus logging is a non-negotiable fallback.

When the Challenge Isn’t Simply Installation — It’s Orchestrating Upgrading 

Scott King, Head of Smart Metering Benefits Realisation at Anglian Water, offered a distinctive perspective. Anglian operates in East Anglia — the driest and most water-stressed region in England — with 99 % NHH meter penetration already achieved. Their focus is upgrade, not initial rollout.

Scott’s strategic emphasis:

• Network first, meter second sequencing to avoid stranded meters.
• Appointment scheduling remains a top challenge due to incomplete site contact data and retailer dependencies.
• Retrofit vs replacement is a trade-off: retrofits offer signal management and      hybrid compatibility, but introduce extra failure points
• Core benefits being delivered: continuous leakage management, efficiency gains, and water scarcity mitigation.

Looking ahead to 2026, Scott named the top two challenges:

1. Managing 55+ million daily reads (data volume and quality).
2. Cybersecurity resilience as metering infrastructure becomes increasingly connected.

This is a mature network grappling with next-generation smart issues — not installation bottlenecks, but data orchestration at scale.

Bill Shock Is Preventable with the Right Targeting

Matthew Margetts, Group Director of Sales and Marketing at Smarter Technologies, brought a technology supplier’s perspective with sharp commercial implications. His focus was on reliable, low-cost connectivity options — and their role in preventing customer shock when data reveals hidden usage.

Key takeaways:

• Early targeting of low-flow, older meters can mitigate bill shock and      customer disputes.
• Smarter Technologies supplies a proprietary backhaul network called “Orion,”      designed for difficult or remote sites.
• A radial network model allows rapid data harvesting without over-reliance on      public networks.
• For commercial landlords and property funds, this means visibility across      fragmented estates.

Matthew’s presentation wasn’t just about connectivity — it was about creating operational certainty for both retailers and end-users. The earlier you stabilise data flow, the more manageable the customer experience becomes.

A Customer View - Transparency and Responsiveness Are Non-Negotiable

Janet Manning, Head of Water at The Royal Horticultural Society, gave a customer’s-eye view that landed powerfully in the room. The RHS operates seven large sites and is already using smart and sub-metering to monitor blue water use per visitor as a key KPI. But their ambition goes further.

Janet described why they need greater smart metering coverage to:

• Build stronger business cases for water efficiency.
• Safeguard site viability in water-stressed regions.
• Make strategic operational decisions backed by data.

Janet shared a case study of a previous retailer whose poor responsiveness on leaks and billing anomalies exposed gaps in the market’s escalation pathways between retailers and wholesalers. For large, sophisticated customers, this creates frustration, inefficiency, and mistrust.

The wider point: market processes are still designed for generic consumption, not for high-value, multi-site customers who require tailored support and direct problem-solving.

Build Lean, Hybrid Internal Teams Rather Than Over-Relying On Contractors

Campbell Scott, Head of Smart Networks, Watercare Services (Auckland, New Zealand), provided a valuable international perspective on moving from RFI to business case to RFP and delivery for non-domestic water customers.

Watercare operates as a full end-to-end provider with no retail layer. Their legacy network was built for mid-20th century heavy industry and was no longer fit for purpose in a service-dominated economy. Key operational moves included:

• Retrofitting mechanical meters with Generation 1 loggers, then upgrading to Generation 2 NB-IoT.
• Managing a 37,000-meter commercial estate representing 30 % of Auckland’s      total water volume.
• A  NZ$35 million capex programme over two years, delivering 15-year OPEX savings and major revenue uplift through reduced under-billing and leak detection.

Cross-transferable takeaways for the UK market were clear:

• Get the architecture right early.
• Unify commercial and residential backbones to simplify scaling.
• Prioritise large volume customers for early impact.
• Build lean, hybrid internal teams rather than over-relying on contractors.
• Ensure NB-IoT equivalent resilience for full coverage.

Rosie Rand’s second presentation focused on what early deployment and data insight are revealing across Thames Water’s non-household smart metering programme — and how those insights are being translated into practical operational action.

Actionable levers highlighted:

• Embedding continuous flow monitoring directly into operational workflows.
• Accelerating retailer notifications to enable faster response cycles.
• Leveraging dual comms architectures to reduce data dropouts and create stable reads.
• Standardising data formats and exchange to smooth retailer–wholesaler coordination.
• Using smart data insight to prioritise high-impact sites — focusing      resources where they deliver the most water saved or the greatest cost avoidance.
• Preparing internal teams and partners for the upcoming Smart Meter Read Hub to scale these gains consistently across the market.

Rosie’s core message: smart metering data must move from insight to action — and the operational teams must be structured to act on it.

Top Actionable Takeaways

• Operationalise continuous flow alerts with retailer integration, not just internal dashboards.
• Standardise data exchange early to avoid scaling fragmentation later.
• Prioritise high-impact sites for leak prevention and tariff optimisation.
• Leverage comms resilience to make data dependable, not occasional.
• Embed market readiness for the Smart Read Hub to remove friction from future phases.

The Smart Meter Read Hub: One Source of Truth for a Fragmented Market

Chris Dawson, Strategic Metering Programme Lead at MOSL, outlined the strategic vision and technical phasing for the Smart Meter Read Hub — arguably one of the most important enablers for the UK business retail water market over the next decade.

• Phase 1 delivery targeted for December 2025, with early adoption in January 2026 and a full go-live by March 2026.
• Phase 2 will embed code obligations, ensuring wholesalers and retailers adhere to standardised data sharing rules and automate data submissions directly to CMOS.
• The ultimate goal: create one trusted, centralised consumption data layer     that allows everyone to operate on the same source of truth.

The  Hub is designed to solve some of these structural weaknesses:

• Leak detection can move from reactive to coordinated, multi-party action.
• Retailer and wholesaler coordination can be automated instead of relying on      bilateral emails, calls, or spreadsheets.
• Tariff innovation (time-of-day, seasonal, dynamic) becomes viable because the underlying data is stable and trusted.
• Wholesalers can reduce data reconciliation overhead and compliance noise.
• Retailers get faster visibility, enabling real service differentiation.
• Customers ultimately get fewer disputes and more actionable data.

Chris emphasised that this isn’t just a plumbing job. It’s market design work:

• Moving MOSL from being a system operator to an enabler and shaper of      the market.
• Baking innovation and tariff flexibility into the market’s DNA rather than      bolting it on afterwards.
• Shifting the language from “non-household” to “business retail market” — a small but powerful semantic shift aligning perception with economic reality.

 Valuable Lessons from the Energy Sector

Jade Lambert, Customer Innovation Manager at IMServ Europe, delivered a sharp and practical presentation on the lessons learned from energy’s data-sharing journey and customer segmentation strategies. IMServ plays a pivotal role in the energy market as a metering and data service provider across electricity, gas, AMR and smart metering — effectively operating as a “data + communications + tech” layer that water currently lacks but will soon need to develop. She highlighted how Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement (MHHS), the single largest regulatory transformation in the UK energy market, forced the upgrade of legacy metering technology and introduced new software entrants — intensifying competition and fragmenting data pathways.

For water, Jade argued, this mirrors the environment emerging around the new smart metering ecosystem: multiple actors (retailers, wholesalers, Data Hub operators, and tech SMEs) needing to coordinate seamlessly while maintaining customer trust. Her central message was clear: early standardisation of data flows is not just a technical nicety — it’s a market enabler. In energy, mandated data standards reduced friction and accelerated innovation. In water, the same discipline will be essential from day one.

 The Business Customer Lens: What They Really Care About According To Research

Christina Blackwell, Head of Business Customers at Consumer Council for Water, brought the customer voice firmly into the conversation. Drawing on CCW’s current evidence base, she unpacked how smart metering is landing with businesses — and where the blind spots remain. The strongest message was unequivocal: billing accuracy is still the number-one source of dissatisfaction. Collaboration on communications is non-negotiable, and the sector lacks a sharp enough research lens on medium-sized firms, affordability pressures, and whether non-household customers actually receive their data in time to act on it.

Christina’s intervention reframed the conversation from technology rollouts to customer impact — underscoring that smart metering only matters if it delivers tangible benefits to end users.

Later during day 2, curated round tables offered a chance to get practical. Discussions quickly shifted to tariff design pathways and the real-world issues around metering life cycles. Delegates explored why a 15-year battery life has effectively become the industry standard — balancing cost, durability, and upgrade cycles — and what that means for rollout planning.

A metering specialist from Xylem emphasised that the core metering technology itself is unlikely to change drastically over the next 15 years, which makes forward planning, comms resilience, and lifecycle strategy more critical than chasing the next hardware iteration. This sparked a lively debate on future-proofing investments without over-engineering for hypotheticals.

Summary of Additional Strategic Themes Emerging from the Conference

• Early data standardisation is critical to avoid fragmentation and unlock innovation.
• Comms planning must be treated as a core infrastructure element, not a      peripheral cost.
• AI  segmentation will shape rollout strategies for non-household metering.
• Billing accuracy and customer trust remain the sharp end of delivery.
• Lifecycle planning is more valuable than chasing incremental hardware change.
• Engagement formats that prioritise dialogue over monologue deepen learning and collaboration.

Format and Energy in the Room: A Real Sense of Community

The conference format itself proved its worth. High-impact 20-minute presentations balanced with equally robust Q&A created space for everyone to participate. Smaller group sessions and roundtables fostered meaningful interaction rather than passive listening.

What stood out most was the energy in the room — a genuine sense of community and shared purpose. For the chair, it made the role effortless because the conversations were driven not just by the speakers but by the audience itself. It’s a model that works — and will be carried forward to the next gathering in October 2026, as well as the half yearly online update scheduled for 17 April 2026.

Steve Thomas, Chair, Strategy Engineering Research Group