Using Smart Meter Data to Conserve Water
Since 2018, the E&E Lab worked closely with the City of Fresno, CA, to help design policy to address the City’s water conservation goals. The researchers implemented a randomized control trial with over 80,000 households to evaluate the efficacy of a new monitoring technology (water use meters providing accurate, real-time data) and assessed the effectiveness of enforcement strategies on water conservation, while minimizing households’ fine burden. The Lab randomly varied the probability and the magnitude of fines levied and found automated enforcement decreases water use by 3 percent and violations by 17 percent. The introduction of automated enforcement reduced city-wide water consumption by 64 million gallons over the summer alone.
Results: 64 million gallons of water were saved over one summer because of increased enforcement.
The City has leveraged the data infrastructure the Lab helped develop to notify households of non-compliance with outdoor watering regulations. They have also decided to suspend fines for regulation noncompliance and are redesigning the City’s regulations to decrease the burden of compliance on residents (e.g., lowering fines). This work is vital in helping local governments better manage increasingly scarce water resources as the climate changes. Building on this success, in 2022 the Lab partnered with the City of Westminster, CO, to generate rigorous evidence to support their water conservation efforts. The E&E Lab has designed three randomized controlled trials with residential customers in Westminster to measure the impact of: 1) marketing messages on customer take-up of water use tracking portal, 2) informational nudges on irrigation and water use, and 3) real-time information on price and consumption to counter bill misperceptions.