Digital Metering Risk Assessment Tool (DMRAT)

Background

Many Victorian water corporations are investigating digital metering, and some are developing business cases for their stakeholders.

In 2016, IWN contracted consulting firm Oakley Greenwood to develop a Digital Metering Risk Assessment Tool (DMRAT) to help water corporations identify risks, costs and benefits specific to each organisation, and thereby develop business cases for deploying digital water meters.

Oakley Greenwood conducted a series of workshops with industry participants to identify and rate risks and potential mitigation measures. Information from external stakeholders also guided the assessment.

Description of project

The Digital Metering Risk Assessment Tool is a spreadsheet that allows users to input the features of their proposed digital metering solution. It then rates risks for the proposed scenario, from insignificant to extreme, by assessing their likelihood of occurrence and the magnitude of their consequences.

The tool then recommends a range of responses or risk treatments: ‘Tolerate’ (low risks), ‘Transfer’ (risk to another party), ‘Mitigate’ (where necessary and affordable), or ‘Avoid’ (extreme risks).

The resulting recommendations can be assessed within each organisation’s wider risk framework.

Scenario options (inputs) include:

•             Technology – meter type, level of automation, communication system and power source

•             Operation - meter reading interval, type and frequency of communication to customers

•             Management – network and software system ownership, meter procurement, roll-out and installation.

The Tool identifies nearly 200 risks associated with digital metering, which can be classified as:

•             Initial and ongoing political and regulatory support

•             Negative customer perceptions with mandatory roll out (as experienced with smart electricity meters)

•             Technology limitations, failure, under-performance, hacking and obsolescence

•             Cost blow outs and failure to deliver promised benefits

•             Operational and management changes required within the water corporation

The tool describes five hypothetical scenarios to provide practical context for water authorities, and will be updated as more is learnt from digital water meter deployments.

Trial outcomes

The Digital Metering Risk Assessment Tool is recommended as a business as usual tool to help water corporations understand the risks of various digital metering solutions. The Digital Metering Risk Assessment Tool is not a static mechanism; as water corporations deploy digital water meters, real life lessons will be fed into the Tool to improve its accuracy and relevance.