Veolia Water has been awarded an eight year €660m contract by Greater Lyon (France) for the production and distribution of drinking water in 54 municipalities.
The contract is due to come into force In February 2015 under a specially created company called "Eau du Grand Lyon." Under the new scope of business defined by Greater Lyon, the contract represents cumulative revenues of €660 million (French standards) and an investment of €55 million.
Greater Lyon has the second largest drinking water service in France in terms of population connected: 1.3 million people across 54 municipalities. The new contract corresponds to a new geographic area - the service was previously provided by three operators, including Veolia which managed 33 municipalities.
Antoine Frérot Chairman and CEO of Veolia Environnement commented:
“Veolia is extremely pleased with this decision. This success reflects our company's ability to renew itself as evidenced by the proposal submitted to Greater Lyon for a service that has been reconfigured on the basis of major innovations and responsible aims. It is truly a new model for a water service that is clearly focused on the future.”
The Greater Lyon water service will incorporate an integrated management centre able to provide complete water traceability and fully transparent operation.
Veolia will implement the ECONO project under which it is planned in particular to install 5,500 leak location sensors for the continuous surveillance of 2,000 kilometers of the most sensitive parts of the network. In addition, 500 mobile sensors will be used for an active leak detection program along an additional 800 kilometers of the network. This is described as a real challenge given that the network yield targets are 85% by the end of 2016 and 87% in 2018.
With the installation of the Téléo smart network, the 400,000 Greater Lyon customers will be able to check their daily consumption via the Internet, receive notification in the event of abnormal consumption via their preferred method (text, email, etc.), and be invoiced for the actual volume of water consumed. The new remote meter reading service will also be used for the real-time location of leaks and monitoring the water quality throughout this drinking water network's 4,000 kilometers.
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