UK utility Northumbrian Water has confirmed a contract to deploy 330,000 smart water meters from Itron, equipped with Cyble 5 communication modules, across its northeast England supply area by 2029. The deal underlines accelerating digital transformation in the water sector and aligns with wider industry goals around leakage reduction and consumption monitoring. This deployment forms part of Northumbrian Water’s wider smart-metering programme, outlined in its partnership with United Infrastructure and Connexin, which aims to achieve a fully smart-meter portfolio by 2035.
Deployment Details & Strategic Rationale
The project involves connection of the new meters via a LoRaWAN network operated by Connexin. The aim is to collect hourly usage data (and more frequent intervals between 1–3 a.m.) so Northumbrian Water can detect leaks, optimise operations and improve billing accuracy.
For Itron, this represents a meaningful UK contract in its water-utilities business and underscores the role of its analytics and endpoint solutions for water loss control. Itron states that it “helps water utilities reduce water loss while protecting revenue” via connected devices, data collection and analytics.
The project builds on previous digital water efforts by Northumbrian Water. The company partnered with Siemens to deploy the EnergyIP MDM X platform connecting more than one million smart meters across its network by 2030.
Industry Context and Implications
The timing of the contract aligns with regulatory pressure from Ofwat, the UK water-sector regulator, which has set ambitious targets for leakage reduction and per-capita consumption.
For Northumbrian Water, such deployments enable a shift from traditional monthly or quarterly reads toward higher-granularity data that can trigger proactive maintenance, leakage detection and customer engagement.
For Itron, the contract enhances the firm’s footprint in the UK water market, already active globally across utilities and cities. Meanwhile, Connexin’s role as a connectivity provider via LoRaWAN strengthens the case for low-power wide‐area networking (LPWAN) in water-AMI (advanced metering infrastructure) roll-outs.
