Kamstrup: Delivering smart Danish metering solutions to Thailand

Kamstrup is a world-leading Danish supplier of intelligent or “smart” energy and water metering solutions. The company produces intelligent metering systems that manage electrical and water consumption. It operates globally with own offices in 24 countries around the world.

ScandAsia talked to Mr. Jesper Daugaard, Senior Vice President and head of Global Marketing, about Kamstrup and its engagement in Thailand.

“In Thailand we mostly provide individual metering. It is mostly constructors that are interested in splitting the bill of the building, such as shopping malls” Jesper Daugaard says.

The overall challenge in Thailand is that some just want metering to be done as cheap as possible, while others have a ‘total cost of ownership’ perspective and want to optimize their metering. It is companies with the latter perspective that turn to Kamstrup for assistance.

“If a company wants to optimize the operation of their business, for instance an office building or a shopping mall, they want to purchase a more expensive metering solution that gives them the opportunity to bill accurately and avoid fraud as well as human mistakes in the process,” Jesper Daugaard explains.

“Our biggest future potential in Thailand is within the public water utility sector,” says Jesper Daugaard.

Like many utility networks around the world, Thailand’s water and electricity networks are generally outdated and represent an unknown loss of water and energy. This loss can be identified by an intelligent network. It is however hard to estimate the potential savings before you start to measure the loss of energy and the current numbers from mechanical meters that are manually read, have proven not to be a reliable source. Also, because salaries are not very high, manual reading of meters is relatively cheap.

“What Kamstup offers is static meters without any moving parts. Compared to a mechanical meter they do not become inaccurate over time. They communicate electronically to the utility providers or project owners, so they can see if there are events or alerts that the utility or building owner should act upon,” Jesper Daugaard explains.

“Another function, if not the most important one, is our metering systems’ ability to detect waste of energy and water. It can be leakages in water pipes or if a electrical grid is overburdened, which causes waste of energy and eventually makes the grid collapse,” Jesper Daugaard further explains.

“In the past you would calculate and estimate these things. Today we have the data available that enable us to analyse on facts that often deviate 30% to what utility managers used to base their decisions on,” he adds.

With a shortage of water in the world and focus on reducing the CO2 emission, Kamstrup’s intelligent metering offers, according to the company, a solution that can address this without compromising comfort or reducing economic growth.

“That It is smart,” Jesper Daugaard says,”- that is probably why we are growing,” he adds.

 

Asian Development Bank collaboration

“In Europe, intelligent metering is already implemented in many areas, which makes it possible for us to estimate potential savings. In countries such as Thailand you will not get a positive business case if you alone focus on reducing manual process to reduce salary costs,” Jesper Daugaard says.

According to Jesper Daugaard, Kamstrups projects in Europe initially started with an aim to reduced manual work and salary costs, but turned up to deliver 3-5 times more return on investment than expected because a large portion of waste was eliminated.

“In Europe, 20% of the benefit relates to automating the billing process. This is easy to estimate and focusing on this alone often gives a payback period from five to seven years. If we took the same approach in Thailand, the payback period might be 80-100 years,” he further explains.

In order to overcome these regional challenges, Kamstrup has initiated a collaboration with the Asian Development Bank to start up potential pilot projects in the region, especially on water related issues.

“What we are trying to do, is to find areas in Thailand and Southeast Asia, where there is a lack of water supply. Right now, we have an ongoing project in India where intelligent metering secure water supply 24/7 compared to 1-2 hours per week prior to the implementation. We hope to get more projects like that, to display the real benefits to Thailand and the rest of the region,” Jesper Daugaard replies, when asked about Kamstrup’s future prospects in Thailand.

In general, because of the increasing awareness of climate changes, supplemented by a shortage of water in the world in general, the demand for smarter and more sustainable solutions increases, which can open new gateways for Kamstrup into Southeast Asia in general and Thailand in particular.

“It is these two mega trends that give us the opportunity to sell Danish solutions to many parts of the world,” Jesper Daugaard concludes.

For more information about Kamstrup and the solutions they offer, go to the company’s website: https://www.kamstrup.com/en-en