Ireland-based Temetra have won a contract worth an estimated £ 800,000 to supply Northumbrian Water with a new Meter Reading and Data Management system.

NWL currently have 845 000 metered properties that require reading either monthly, quarterly or six monthly and a contract prerequisite was that the software must be able to optimise meter reading routes accordingly. It also had to be proven and already in use to a similar scale in other utility (preferably water supply companies).

Northumbrian Water’s  meter stock is made up of multiple manufacturers' meters and reading devices, some of which are read manually, others remotely as a walk by read and others by AMR.

Other contract requirements included the following:

• The system must  be capable of supporting a range of communications methods and not place any constraints on the types of meter (and device) that can be read nor the communications method that can be used.
• The system must be capable of expanding to include any future communications technology.
• The software should also enable the provision of a real time, web based visual view of their water consumption, where their meter and associated device are set up for frequent interval reading collection.
• The system must also provide the ability for customers to be able to download consumption data in a range of selectable formats.

Founded in 2002 to support the introduction of widespread AMR for non-domestic metering, Temetra - one of two companies who bid for the contract - is the most widely used meter management system for water in Ireland.

In the last three years the firm,  a leading provider of cloud-based meter data management for water, gas and heat meters.has experienced rapid growth outside Ireland -  customers now include some of the largest water meter networks in Europe.