Water rates in Ostrava remain among the lowest in Czech regional capitals
Water
Ostrava will continue to have one of the lowest water rates out of all Czech regional capitals. Water rates will increase by just 0.33 CZK, and the rates payable by citizens and businesses for the city’s sewerage systems will increase by just 0.35 CZK (77.30 CZK per m3 of water compared with 76.62 in the previous year). Both increases are well under one percent, and the increase represents under 2 CZK per month for an average consumer. Rates are influenced by a number of factors, including increases in infrastructure rental prices paid by Ostrava’s water management company OVAK to the City of Ostrava; the City uses this rental income to fund repairs and modernization of the network.
The rental payment to the City is not OVAK’s only contribution to the network, as the company’s General Manager Petr Konečný explains:
In 2018 we will spend a minimum 373 million CZK on improvements to water management infrastructure – of which 288 million CZK will be paid in rental fees to the City of Ostrava, and the remainder will finance repairs carried out by us. We also plan to invest 34 million CZK in improving the quality of our services and maintaining Ostrava’s water supply and sewerage network.
OVAK will continue to develop state-of-the-art technologies in the upcoming year – especially its project to phase in smart metering via remote data transfer systems (which won the company a special award in the “Smart Cities for the Future 2017” competition). Konečný explains:
Currently we have 4 500 water meters that can be read remotely as part of our smart metering scheme. Our plan is to increase that number to 8 000 by 2019. By 2024 we would like to see the entire city covered by this technology. The project has huge potential, and offers many advantages. For customers it is much more user-friendly than standard meter reading, and it enables us to identify and respond to any abnormal situations or incidents very quickly.
OVAK is also planning to develop a new technique known as ice pigging, which is used to clean pipes using an ice slush containing cleaning salts. The method can remove even stubborn deposits from the inside of pipes, which traditional methods often cannot deal with.