Earlier, I posted a graph of my household water use for the past few years and challenged our readers to identify as many interesting characteristics about my household as they can. Often, the only data a water utility has on their customers are what they have in their billing records. Other household characteristics, such as size of household, income, age, house and lot size and features, water use behavior and preferences, etc., are very difficult to obtain for each customer. However, as demonstrated by my own personal example, mining the billing data alone can reveal much about each household. Here is what my water use history reveals about my household, and the application of this exercise in water resources and utility finance management.

Are you up for a challenge? I have disclosed in the graph below my own household’s water use between June 2006 and December 2014, as reported on my water bills. Without any more information about my household’s characteristics (except that it is residential, on a single 5/8″ meter, and using drinking water and wastewater service from one utility), this is the extent of knowledge that my utility has about my household. Yet, my water use data – which are present in the utility’s billing records – reveal much about my household. My challenge to you is to look at this graph and identify as many interesting characteristics about my household as you can. Think about it, too, from the perspective of how the utility should interact with my household. I will reveal answers later this week (stay tuned!).

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Guest author Catherine Noyes is an Associate Consultant at Raftelis Financial Consultants. Through the 1960s, the utility business was all about protecting public health – making sure that technology was in place to ensure safe and reliable water and wastewater … Read more

Dayne Batten is a Research Assistant for the EFC and second year MPA student at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Government. Traditional engineering plans suggest that, when customer demand approaches the maximum daily capacity of a utility’s treatment plant, the utility … Read more

Mary Tiger is the Chief Operating Officer for the Environmental Finance Center and Project Manager for “Defining a Resilient Business Model for Water Utilities” Project funded bythe Water Research Foundation. Water and wastewater utilities most commonly generate revenue by charging … Read more

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Shadi Eskaf is a Senior Project Director for the Environmental Finance Center at the University of North Carolina. Imagine yourself to be the C.E.O. of a company that produces a high quality product. That product doesn’t really face competition from … Read more