Beacon

Tauranga’s demand management activities

With a current population of 105,060 and significant growth over the past 15 years, Tauranga has experienced significant pressure on water supply. Before implementation of water demand management, the peak daily demand was estimated to reach 108,000m³ by 2014 resulting in the need for an additional water supply at a cost of $40,000 million. Instead the need has been delayed by 10 years with a peak demand of approximately 60,000m³ in 2005 and existing raw water resources will be able to serve more than 50,000 additional people in future years.

• Tauranga City Council focused on providing practical information to improve water use efficiency locally, and the positive branding of the water efficiency programme has been successful—“Water—Let’s make every drop count”.
• Waterline - this free advisory service helps customers identify losses and wastage on their systems and offers a free leak detection service for residential properties.
• Schools’ education programme - an important long-term investment in water conservation is improving the awareness of young schoolchildren in the subject. 
• Universal water metering -  the introduction of an equitable pricing structure for water services and giving customers the ability to be aware of their consumptive use of water.
• Water consumption and meter reading information for customers - high usage notification and follow up leak detection services are freely available to all customers.
• Monitoring real water losses in each supply zone by conducting night flow testing.
• Active leakage control involving manual field checks using leak detection equipment.
• Distribution maintenance and passive leakage control - rapid response to customer calls and reported pipe breaks have been built into performance based maintenance contracts.
• Pressure management whereby service levels are not compromised but pressure (and leakage) is reduced during off peak periods.
• Partnerships with plumbers, merchants and garden centres to promote water efficiency.
• Alternative water sources and emerging technologies – Tauranga City Council has investigated alternatives such as greywater reuse, rainwater harvesting and recycling waste effluent.

Results

• The introduction of water metering and charging on a volumetric basis reduced average daily water demand by approximately 25%.
• Metering and other water demand management initiatives enabled Tauranga City Council to defer investment in a new $40 million water source by 10 years, and has meant existing water resources will be able to serve more than 50,000 additional people in future years.
• Without demand management interventions Tauranga City Council estimates that the high population growth in Tauranga together with the allowance for an “unrestricted supply” of water to customers would have pushed peak daily demand (PDD) to approximately 104,000 m3/day by 2011. Latest estimates predict the PDD to be approximately 60,000 m3/day.
• Residential average daily water demand is approximately 216l/pp/pd.
• International Leakage Index of between 1–1.5 for five years between 2002/03–2006/07.

The value to Tauranga City Council and ratepayers

Beacon has developed a framework that can help councils and other water authorities analyse the value of taking a demand management approach. The framework was applied to value the net benefits arising from Tauranga City Council’s work over the last decade in implementing WDM through the introduction of water metering and pricing and education programmes.

Based on this economic analysis, it is estimated that as a result of implementing a water demand management approach, Tauranga City Council has delayed the implementation of the next major water supply infrastructure identified for the city’s water supply, by approximately 10 years with a net benefit to the community of $53.3 million in 2009 terms.

Related Documents

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  31-Oct-2009 (Report WA7090/6)

  A Framework for Valuing Water Demand Management: Tauranga City Council Case Study (PDF 838KB)

  Nicola Smith, Garry McDonald

  This conceptual framework is the second part of a project which addressed the question, 'why' (would an organisation adopt WDM). To do this Beacon commissioned work from Market Economics in three parts: a literature review (WA7090/4), the creation of a comprehensive conceptual framework (WA7090/5) and a case study to test the framework utilising data from Tauranga City Council. Based on the application of the economic framework developed in the first two reports , it is estimated that as a result of implementing a water demand management approach, Tauranga City Council has delayed the implementation of the next major water supply infrastructure identified for the city's water supply, by approximately 10 years with a net benefit to the community of $53.3 million in 2009 terms. 

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  04-Jan-2008 (Report WA7060/3)

  Best Practice Water Efficiency Policy and Regulation (PDF 1.4MB)

  Maggie Lawton, Damon Birchfield, David Kettle and Chloe Trenouth

  This report is an in-depth investigation into demand management practices in New Zealand and overseas and the regulation and other policy approaches that impact on the degree of success of their uptake. Shows that water conservation technologies are readily available but our water conservation policy and regulations are lagging behind and need further development to better support the adoption of such technologies.

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  03-Jan-2007 (Report TE106 /6)

  Demand Management Through Water Retrofit Projects (PDF 737KB)

  Damon Birchfield

  Reviews water demand management initiatives in New Zealand. Few councils have implemented programmes to significantly reduce annual water consumption per capita at the household level. Identifies the reasons for water conservation in New Zealand and details overseas initiatives, especially Australia. Impressive water savings from the Sydney programme are highlighted. Project undertaken to support Papakowhai Renovation project.