SUBANG JAYA, 14 JULY 2020 – Salcon Berhad today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Salcon Engineering Berhad (“Salcon”) has signed a Joint Venture Agreement with The One Smart City Development Limited (“TOSC”) of Hong Kong via its subsidiary, Wide Plus Smart City Sdn Bhd (“WP”) to market and deploy smart water systems with end to end monitoring platform solutions in Malaysia. The shareholdings in the joint venture company, Digital Momentum Sdn Bhd (“JVCo”) will be held by Salcon and WP on 60:40 basis with Salcon holding the majority. Upon completion of the joint venture, JVCo shall be renamed Salcon WP Sdn Bhd. In line with the signing of the Shareholder’s Agreement, Salcon also announced the signing of a Technology License Agreement (TLA) between TOSC and JVCo.
The JVCo will focus on providing end-to-end water management solutions throughout a water utilities’ entire water network system supported by internet of things (IOT) solutions for remote meter reading, water quality, pressure and level monitoring and leakage detection. This entails the installation of household water meters, bulk meters differential flow meters and other peripherals that digitally monitor water flows for usage, quality and flow rates. The built-in transmission modules are able to transmit relevant data to a central monitoring station for action when necessary, on a real time basis so that leakages anywhere in the system can be addressed immediately. This enables fast data analysis and statistics for decision making and efficient monitoring of water quality and water supply conditions.
“We are delighted to have entered into a joint venture agreement with WP to significantly advance our business with meter data management solutions in the local market,” said Ir Lee Choon Weng, General Manager – Water Resources of Salcon. “With technology playing a critical role in every aspect of business, Salcon recognises the need to innovate and facilitate technology transfer to stay competitive in the marketplace. WP is the right partner for us because of their deep domain expertise to provide technology and strategic business solutions to meet the market demand and address future potential needs of our local water utilities in Malaysia.”
“Integrated smart water solutions are crucial to the future of water management with various hardware and devices forming only part of the entire component of an effective system. Together with Salcon, we are confident to build a comprehensive network with Internet-Of-Things supporting technologies to better equip water utilities to meet the growing demand for reliable and consistent solutions. Preserving water, which is getting scarce over time and for digitalization towards a more sustainable future” Dato Dr Marcus Lee, Director of WP said.
WP is a wholly owned subsidiary of The One Smart City Development Limited (“TOSC”) of Hong Kong which is related to Wide Plus High Precision Automation Limited (“WPHP”). WPHP is in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of China High Precision Automation Group Limited (“CHPAG”), a company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. WPHP possesses the rights to the patents that drives this water management technological solution. TOSC has been granted the rights to market and deliver this solution to the overseas market and has nominated WP to enter into the joint venture.
Wong Shek, Director at WPHP, further added, “Non-Revenue Water is a major issue with all water authorities in Asia. With the difference between the sum of the billed water and the water produced by the treatment plants running to over 40% in many cities, WPHP took on the task together with Huawei to develop the 5G narrow-band internet of things (NB-IoT) integrated digitized smart water meter. Working together with the Fuzhou State Water Company, we developed the software solution for the receiving of data from individual meters, analysing big data, reporting and real time highlighting problem situations like leakages, flowrate differentials, quality changes etc. The individual user is empowered to track the usage of their own water consumption 24/7 and detect leakages after the meter.”
The first deployment of this solution was made in 2017 in Fuzhou, Capital City of Fujian Province when 300,000 household meters were installed together with thousands of bulk meters as well as flow rate meters and other peripherals. Savings for the water authorities depend on the speed at which identified leakages are addressed. Beyond Fuzhou, deployments are being made in Tianjin, Hebei and Guangdong involving millions of meters.
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