San Antonio Water System

What is non-revenue water?

As the name implies, non-revenue water is water that is produced or received from a given source, but never delivered or billed to a customer. Non-revenue water is sometimes referred to as “water loss,” but that term can be misleading. While non-revenue water does include water “lost” through main breaks and leaking infrastructure, it also includes unbilled water use due to:

Authorized consumption
Necessary and beneficial unmetered water uses such as:

• Hydrant flushing
• Firefighting
• Water line flushing for health and safety
• Water used for sewer system cleaning and maintenance

Apparent losses
Inexact measurement and/or unreported water uses such as:

• Inaccurate meters at homes and businesses
• Water theft
• Data errors

Why now?

SAWS has engaged in proactive efforts to reduce non-revenue water for more than a decade. Several overlapping influences have elevated non-revenue water to a top priority at many water utilities, including SAWS. Among the contributing factors: Prolonged drought, intensified by climate change, has made water supply scarcity a growing concern. Record population growth across Texas has added urgency to those supply concerns. And aging infrastructure makes it harder — and costlier than ever — to keep pipes, pumps and treatment plants from losing water due to structural or mechanical issues.

The task force identified accurate measurement as the first step toward controlling and ultimately improving non-revenue water loss, accomplished by:

• Improved water production metering at the source
• Enhanced customer metering via ConnectH2O electronic meters
• More standardized methods for determining water lost through identified breaks and leaks
• Better estimates of unbilled-but-authorized water use such as firefighting and line flushing/cleaning

In addition to improvements in measurement outlined above, SAWS is committed to reducing “real” water loss through:

• Proactive leak detection
• Improved response time to repair leaks and breaks
• Exploring new technology
• Prioritizing water main replacement projects

Non-Revenue Water is a Nationwide Challenge

Water loss caused by aging infrastructure and inconsistent measurement is not unique to San Antonio. Cities across the U.S. are struggling to find new ways to measure and ultimately reduce the amount of water that is produced but not delivered or billed to customers. SAWS is at the forefront of these efforts.

Here are some resources that give a broader view of non-revenue water and the different ways it is being addressed around the nation.

To set realistic expectations for addressing these issues, customers will need to understand:

• Solving systemic infrastructure problems will take time to address.
• The current tools and methods available are imperfect and still evolving.
• The issue involves an extremely complex water delivery system that is made up of nearly 8,000 miles of pipes.
• Our city’s unique and varied geology poses additional challenges for underground infrastructure.
• The solutions to reduce non-revenue water will ultimately be very costly to implement.

The water industry and its regulatory agencies have developed benchmarks to help document, track and assist local utilities with non-revenue water reduction efforts.

• The Texas Water Development Board requires all retail public water systems with more than 3,300 connections or a financial obligation to the agency to complete and submit a Water Loss Audit annually.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates the US will need to spend up to $200 billion dollars on water systems over the next 20 years.

How We’ll Measure Success

The American Water Works Association has developed industry-standard key performance indicators for non-revenue water. The two KPIs recommended for setting water loss targets are Apparent Losses — mainly customer meter under-registration and theft — and Real Losses from breaks and leaks. These are measured in Gallons per Connection per Day, or GCD:

Annual Losses ÷ Water Service Connections ÷ 365 Days = Gallons per Connection per Day (GCD)

Important note: The water industry is moving away from measuring water loss as a percentage of total supply, since that could make it appear that using more water results in less water loss.

SAWS Non-Revenue Water Program Targets
To align with our long-term SAWS Water Management Plan and guidance from our Board of Trustees, our major milestones for this program are:

• 2023-2024 — already reduced SAWS water loss by 10 GCD.
• By 2028 — reduce water loss by another 15 GCD to 61 GCD.
• By 2035 — reduce loss to 43 GCD, a 50% reduction from 86 GCD in 2023.