The city continues to advance by leaps and bounds to consolidate itself as a Smart City thanks to the collaboration between HiDRALiA and the City Council to implement smart meters in all consumption

HiDRALiA, the Estepona municipal water supply and sewage service concession company, presented this morning at the Estepona Conference Center what will be a major boost for the consolidation of the city as a Smart City: remote reading. Estepona will thus become a pioneer municipality in implementing smart meters in 100% of the town's consumption.

The event was attended by Fulgencio Díaz, manager of the company in Estepona, and José María García Urbano, mayor of the town. In addition, they have been accompanied by Matilde Mancha, general director of HiDRALiA, and José Pérez Pardo, from the company's Customer Service department, and Luis Utrilla, president of the Spanish Red Cross in Malaga.

The mayor highlighted the commitment that has been made to create a sustainable city with quality of life, with facilities that have promoted a city focused on the well-being of citizens. In this sense, he explained that this joint initiative with Hidralia allows abounding in the respect and care of the environment and the responsible management of natural resources. "That Estepona is the first municipality in Andalusia with remote reading in all its meters is a sign of our commitment to sustainability and care for our environment", added the mayor.

For his part, Díaz highlighted how HiDRALiA has been betting on the transformation of management "so that every day we offer a better service of higher quality, more efficient and with maximum protection and respect for the environment". Reviewing the milestones that the company has achieved in Estepona in recent years, he highlighted the preparation of the Water Supply and Sewerage Master Plans and the Local Improvement Fee, renewed in 2020, which allows continuing with the renovation of the infrastructures of the municipality in the period 2021-2030, with a budget of 22.7 million euros, as well as the improvement of the technical performance of the water networks, which has allowed saving in 10 years the equivalent of the consumption of 271,000 people in a year "proof of the success of public-private collaboration”, he pointed out.

On the implementation of remote reading, Díaz has highlighted the effort that the company has made in recent times to transform the service, making it closer to citizens and leaving no one behind. “Last year we already started our Digital Transformation project to remotely control the consumption of municipal meters in parks, gardens or schools, which has led to savings of more than 80 million liters of water for the municipality. Now we are advancing even further in this sense, since it is going to be extended to all the accountants of the municipality”, he highlighted.

“Thanks to the collaboration between Hidralia and the City Council, Estepona has become the first municipality in Andalusia, and of course also on the Costa del Sol, to have smart remote reading meters for all consumption in the city, as well as to offer a service of more value and closer to customers”, he indicated.

What is remote reading?

Remote reading is a system of digital solutions for reading remote smart meters that allow water consumption to be consulted at any time and from anywhere, quickly and easily through the Customer Area of ​​the Hidralia website.

With this technological transformation of the service, an alarm system will be implemented to control consumption that users themselves can configure, which would serve to almost immediately detect leaks (avoiding waste and impacts on bills), possible squatting of second homes and even to provide a care service to people who live alone when detecting a lack of consumption in a certain period of time.

Regarding this last benefit, the event was used to present the project "Working in the solitude of people", which Hidralia will carry out with the Red Cross.

A project that is especially aimed at the elderly, who, for reasons of disability, social isolation, advanced age, illness or other reasons, require continuous attention and monitoring, providing support and security to users and families when anomalies in their consumption patterns appear.

The Red Cross will be in charge of managing social assistance for the elderly alone and the action protocols in case of emergency thanks to the data that Hidralia provides through remote reading.