Freestyle Technology has won a contract to deliver an IoT-based water metering and management solution to the Municipality of Gochang in South Korea.

The five-year, $5.8 million contract – with potential for a $3 million, three-year extension – means that the Melbourne-based company will supply the rural region with digital water meters, communications hardware, and a cloud-based IoT platform for 24,000 residential households.

Deployments are scheduled to commence in May this year, and the company expects to complete the initial rollout by the end of 2017.

This deployment marks the first full-scale initiative of its type in the country, and the company hopes to provide cost savings through productivity improvements, better capex management and improved customer service and management.

Freestyle provided a better value proposition than a number of local Korean vendors during the two-year tender process, which included extensive proof-of-concept demonstrations and live trials with 100 selected residences to ensure the technology could function in both the -10 degree and 40-plus degree temperatures experienced in the region.

This latest contract represents a growing presence in South Korea for Freestyle, where the company has also secure three IoT water metering and management trials with other municipalities.

Freestyle’s reach also extends to Taiwan and China, with plans to diversify into electricity and waste management in Japan, Thailand and Australia in the works.

Freestyle Technology CEO Mohan Jesudason said in a statement: “It is a major achievement for an early stage Australian technology company to be punching well above its weight in highly advanced and competitive markets [and] it goes to the heart of the innovation and technology agendas being driven by governments in Australia and globally.”

Gochang County’s Mayor Park Woo-Jung added: “The new AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) system will enhance the efficiency of the process of meter reading which will provide a better life to the people of Gochang.”

Freestyle Technology has accelerated its push for IoT market penetration in the utilities sector in the recent past, with the establishment of a research and development centre in Mount Waverly last year.