Octopus‘ platform Kraken, widely known for its work in the energy sector, has successfully expanded its operations into the water industry.
Kraken’s collaboration with Portsmouth Water marks the platform’s first venture into water utilities.
The partnership began after Portsmouth Water, led by Chief Executive Officer Bob Taylor, selected Kraken through a standard procurement process.
The decision was influenced by Kraken’s previous experience in smart metering and its approach to managing utilities.
Kraken’s Chief Executive Officer, Deepak Ravindran, explained that while many processes in energy and water utilities are similar, the water sector has unique challenges.
These include a high number of unmetered properties and the need for both property-centric and customer-centric management.
The implementation of Kraken at Portsmouth Water is expected to bring several benefits, including improved customer communication, more frequent meter readings, and the potential for combined billing across utilities.
The platform will also help customers better understand their water usage and identify leaks more quickly.
Bob Taylor said: “Once Kraken is fully implemented, we envision using it as a tool to stimulate behavioural change.
“We think of platforms like this primarily as communication tools, providing information to tell customers things they would not otherwise know how they use water and how to use it more efficiently.
“That is the basis of both smart metering and Kraken and it helps in so many areas. For example, we can easily identify whether customers have leaks on their own pipes within homes and premises.
“We can analyse readings more frequently – not just twice a year, but every 30 minutes, making it possible to identify even low-level leaks.”
Deepak Ravindran said: “Almost 70-80% of the processes across the utilities are similar, but but there were some major differences.
“One is the high proportion of unmetered properties in water. The second big element is that most water companies globally are monopolies, and tend to be property-centric, so we needed to bring into Kraken the ability to have both a property-centric and customer-centric view.”
