Benidorm consolidates its efficiency in water management with the acquisition of more than 1,600 smart meters

Benidorm, the third city in the world in efficiency in water use according to the International Water Association, consolidates its strategy for the protection of water resources with a new action framed in its Sustainable and Integrative Urban Development Strategy. Benidorm City Council has acquired, with co-financing from European FEDER funds, 1,611 smart water meters that will be installed in the neighbourhoods of Colonia Madrid, Alfredo Corral and the surrounding areas of Maravall Street, the area of action of the EDUSI of Benidorm.

“With the installation of these 1,611 smart meters, we are going to ensure that 96% of the water meters in Benidorm have remote reading,” explained the Water Cycle Councilor José Ramón González de Zárate. “We act in the neighbourhoods of the EDUSI area, replacing the older meters with these digital ones, to allow residents to know and control their consumption in real-time and detect interior leaks immediately.”

Benidorm City Council, together with Hidraqua, has been working for years on the comprehensive renewal of the network of conventional water meters with smart meters with remote reading in homes and companies in the city.

This smart solution allows users to have greater control of their water consumption. Councilor González de Zárate highlights that “the remote reading system notifies users, through email and SMS, of how much is being consumed and at what time, thus ensuring real billing.”

The new smart meters also warn communities when a certain consumption is exceeded or if several hours are detected in which the meter is consuming or stopped, allowing the immediate detection of any type of leak. These 1,611 new telemeters, which represent 6.90% of the existing meter fleet, also allow “Benidorm to continue consolidating itself as a world-class city inefficient water management,” in the words of González de Zárate.

The action has had an investment of 227,038.51 euros, co-financed by the FEDER funds of the EDUSI and the Benidorm City Council. The acquisition of smart water meters responds to the sixth thematic objective of the Benidorm EDUSI, which seeks to “conserve and protect the environment and promote resource efficiency.”

BENIDORM EDUSI:

The Pluriregional Operational Program of Spain 2014-2020, and the Sustainable Growth Operational Program (POCS) promote the DUSI strategy, of Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development, which Benidorm, as established in the Resolution of May 4, 2018, published in The Official State Gazette (BOE) of the Order of the Third Call HFP/888/2017, has managed to opt for and obtain FEDER aid financing of 10 Million Euros, through its EDUSI BENIDORM strategy.

The EDUSI BENIDORM is made up of a series of thematic, specific, strategic and operational objectives, encompassed through 13 Lines of Action, whose social, environmental, economic and urban impact on the city aims to transform a delimited urban area of ​​the city into the to intervene and regenerate comprehensively, to produce a global impact and improvement in the city.