Global Water and Thames Water Partner to Bring Water Scarcity Management Tools to Customers in the UK

LONDON, May 9, 2012 /CNW/ - GWR Global Water Resources Corp. (TSX: GWR), Global Water Resources, Inc. ("Global Water") and Thames Water Utilities Ltd in the United Kingdom today announced that they have entered into an agreement to demonstrate the power of Global Water's FATHOM™ platform for Thames Water's commercial customers.  Under this agreement, Global Water will develop and implement a Thames Water-specific data hosting, analytics, billing and consumer presentment interface for Thames Water's high value commercial consumers.  The project will initially take data from automated metering infrastructure pilots currently underway at Thames Water and provide actionable information to consumers on their water use through FATHOM™.  The initial phase of the project is scheduled to be completed by June 15, 2012, and may then be incrementally rolled out to a specific portion of the Thames Water commercial consumer population.

"Despite one of the wettest Aprils ever, we remain in drought having had below-average rainfall for 20 of the previous 25 months. This project is part of our continuing efforts to manage our increasingly precious resource responsibly and effectively over the long term," said Piers Clark, Thames Water's Commercial Director.  "We know that with increasing volatility in our water resource picture we need to use water wisely.  In order to make informed decisions about water, our customers need to be given access to real-time data. Global Water's FATHOM^TM platform offers that.  In addition, the adoption of FATHOM™ allows us to increase service levels and customer satisfaction, a key goal for the company."

Trevor Hill, President and CEO of Global Water noted, "This Thames Water deal is a critical milestone in our international expansion.  We are delighted that a company as forward thinking as Thames Water has seen the benefit of our consumer-facing demand-side management tools.  And as we have developed these tools from the ground up to be deployed remotely via a cloud-based architecture, agencies like Thames Water can have access to these tools almost immediately.  In our increasingly connected world, people are demanding more information - specifically more personalized information - with which to make decisions.  From a water perspective, this level of information has never been available - until FATHOM^TM."

FATHOM^TM is deployed as an integrated suite of utility-to-utility services including Automated Meter Infrastructure, Customer Information System and Asset Management solutions that have been proven to lower utility operating costs while improving service levels. The solution is hosted in a secure cloud computing environment, which makes implementation rapid and requires no additional IT personnel or infrastructure.  Further, and increasingly importantly, FATHOM^TM can be deployed incrementally, allowing utilities to demonstrate its power on their highest value customers before rolling it out to their entire client population.

About GWR Global Water Resources Corp and Global Water
GWR Global Water Resources Corp. owns an approximate 48.1% interest in Global Water, a leading water resource management and technology company that owns and operates water, wastewater and recycled water utilities, and provides technology-enabled services through its unique platform, FATHOM^TM Utility-to-Utility ("U₂U™") Solutions.  Initially developed by Global Water to support and optimize its own utilities, FATHOM^TM OS is a cloud-based geo-spatial integrated suite of utility-to-utility solutions proven to increase utility revenue, decrease operating costs and improve customer service.  FATHOM™ puts water management tools in customers' hands.

About Thames Water
At Thames Water, our business is to provide an essential service to the residents and businesses of London and the Thames Valley. We take water from rivers and boreholes, treat it and transport it to our 8.8 million water customers − before recycling 14 million people's wastewater safely back to the environment.  We are leaders in the protection of our most vital resource, and we encourage and provide tools to our consumers to use water wisely, whilst we continue to invest in the future and improve our own performance.