Smart Water Meters Installed in Taoyuan Public Housing 社宅推智慧水表 2千戶可免去人工抄表

Taiwan wastes a lot of manpower with its system of water, electricity and gas meter readers to record usage. Readers have to go from house to house and building to building recording numbers. The system not only has major privacy issues, but residents often aren't honest about their resource usage. Taoyuan is in the process of installing smart readers in new public housing.

This public housing complex in Taoyuan has over 400 units installed with smart water meters. The city plans to install smart meters in new public housing complexes in the future as well.

Lien Hung-hsiang, President of Social Housing Development Company: “We're using the same water meters as everywhere else, except ours have an extra transmission pin that transmits to the water company. The advantage of this is that we won't need water meter readers in the future.”

While traditional and smart meters may look the same on the outside, smart meters can transmit data back to the water company. This negates the need for manual meter reading and also has potential for added-value services in the future. In addition, leaks can be discovered more quickly and there should be less water resource waste.

Liu Bo-hung, Section Chief, Taoyuan City Office of Housing Development: “In the future, we will hold discussions with Taiwan Water on data collection. This would allow residents to know how much water they are using every day. They will also be able to check their water usage against their water bill every month.”

Kuo Wen-bin, Second District Management Branch, Taiwan Water Co.: “This will negate the need for water meter readers and allow residents to monitor their water usage levels. It will also allow residents to become aware of leaks or abnormal water usage immediately.”

The city government says the manual water, electricity, and gas meter reading system is a waste of resources. In addition, the system has major privacy issues and residents often aren't honest about usage with a reporting discrepancy rate of 30 percent. Taoyuan hopes smart meters can solve all these problems.

新大樓頂樓裝置了密密麻麻的水表，這裡是桃園社會住宅中路3號，總共400多戶，預計11月開放入住。桃園市率先在社會住宅推動智慧水表，除了中路3號，未來新建的社宅也都會納入計畫，粗估2000戶左右。

社宅工程公司經理連宏祥說明：「我們這邊自來水表是跟一般水表一樣，只是說它會多了一個傳輸的孔，然後到時候就會傳輸到自來水公司去，這個好處就是說，以後就不用人特別來抄表。」

智慧水表和傳統水表外觀看起來沒什麼兩樣，但它可以透過網路直接將用戶用水度數傳回自來水公司，除了免去抄表工作，未來還可以搭配管理系統，提供住戶智慧水管理加值服務，還能即時抓漏，減少水資源浪費。

桃市住宅發展處社宅開發科長劉柏宏表示：「未來我們會跟台水洽談，把這個數據收集到我們的資料庫裡面，讓住戶即時知道自己每天自來水使用的狀況，也可以跟他每個月收到台水的帳單完全是一致的。」

自來水公司第二區管理處副處長郭文彬說：「對水公司來講，他可以不用去現場做抄錄；對用戶來講，他可以實際上去掌握他整個用水情形，如果有漏水或者是用水異常，他可以即時發現，去做適當的處理。」

市府表示，目前水、電、瓦斯都是人工抄表，不但浪費人力，有的要進屋抄表，衍伸隱私問題，由住戶自填使用度數，錯誤率又高達3成。初期試辦智慧水表，如果效果良好，將推廣應用到電表、瓦斯表系統。