How blockchain can revolutionise the way we use water
MeterMe is a project focused on changing the way we use water. Currently in New Zealand, water metering and volumetric pricing is only carried out in a small number of cities and towns (a total of 700,000 meters), meaning that the majority of consumers have no incentive to conserve the resource. MeterMe proposes to disrupt this model by promoting smart metering technology to water suppliers across New Zealand and eventually the world. This smart metering revolution combines a series of innovative and edge technologies to create publicly verifiable and immutable records of water usage. Internet of Things (IoT) devices, Blockchain technology and citizen-centric data mining are combined to create a verified record of water use, which can be cross-checked and monitored by anyone around the globe. Data privacy is assured through the sophisticated SHA-256 encryption algorithm, ensuring that private information is protected and available only to the unique customer and their water supplier.
The immutability and public nature of blockchain, combined with the on-chain computation that smart contract technology allows, is a perfect fit for smart metering technology.