Partnership Potential Between Water Utilities and Their Non-Residential Customers

<p>What happens if your largest water customer moves out of town? What if you suddenly need to reduce usage drastically in your service area due to an emergency – which of your customers should you call first? How has water use changed over time for your ten largest customers, and what does that mean for your bottom line? What other changes have happened with your commercial customers, and are those changes systemic or temporary? Understanding how a utility’s non-residential customers use water can help answer these questions and can provide critical information to utility managers in assessing their water resources and financial stability into the future.</p> <p></p> <p>In 2010, non-residential customers used nearly 43% of public water supplied in the United States (Maupin et al, 2014). In fact, across the country, the portion of public water demanded by commercial, industrial, and institutional water customers has increased over the past twenty years as water efficiency in the residential sector has improved. Studying customer behavior has become an essential strategy for most businesses. Yet non-residential water customers are largely understudied and compared by utilities, in large part because it is an extremely diverse customer classification (Morales & Heaney, 2014). This group of customers can include everything from a small insurance office with one bathroom to the entire campus of a University.</p> <p>The Environmental Finance Center recently took an in-depth look at the water usage and billing practices of non-residential customers of four urban utilities in North Carolina. The findings in North Carolina were consistent with national trends. Between July [...]</p>