A Better Understanding of Nonresidential Water Customers Through Analysis

Water utilities can project fluctuations in use over time and improve pricing schemes and business practices by analyzing and tracking water use among non-residential customers. Although in most cases nonresidential water customers make up a small portion of the number of utility customer accounts, their demand on water resources is significant. Charging separate rates for nonresidential customers requires the utility to maintain records of customer type changes over time within the billing system in order to charge appropriately. By tracking each customer's water use over time, the analysis used the key accounts and plateauing customers. These metrics can be applied to any and all nonresidential customers and used to inform utility planning and decision-making. Billing records can be used to make sure that customers are being billed appropriately, particularly if rates vary by meter size. Because the meter size of nonresidential customers varies so much, an annual review of nonresidential customers' billing records can be used to track the average and maximum water use of each meter against its potential.