Water Industry Act - review of water meter arrangements
- Project Released: 05 Dec 2012
- Project Closes: 28 Jun 2013
- Contact: Stuart Peevor
Overview
The Commission is conducting a cost benefit analysis of installing separate
water meters on public residential land pursuant to section 99 of the Water
Industry Act 2012 (WI Act).
Under the WI Act the Commission must prepare and publish a report on
this analysis by 30 June 2013. The purpose of the analysis is to examine the
appropriateness of installing individual water meters where they are currently
not installed, with a particular focus on public residential lands (owned by the
South Australian Housing Trust or similar public bodies).
Status
Current status is Final
Final
The Commission has released its report on the costs and benefits of
installing separate water meters on public residential land. The report has been
prepared pursuant to section 99 of the Water Industry Act 2012.
The report sets out the costs and benefits, and distributional impacts, of
three schemes to retrofit individual meters to approximately 17,000 South
Australian Housing Trust (SAHT) residential dwellings which are currently
serviced by group SA Water meters. The report also considers the merits of
mandating individual metering for newly constructed SAHT properties.
The Commission has found that, on a purely financial basis, there is no case
for a large-scale roll out of individual water meters to group-fed SAHT
dwellings. The Commission’s analysis shows that SA Water, SAHT and SAHT tenants
would all pay more under an individually metered scenario.
However, the mandating of separate metering to new builds is likely to be
less costly than to retrofit.
Finally, the Commission has also made a number of related observations in its
report relating to the water metering and charging arrangements at SAHT
dwellings.