Making The Most Of AMI

The notion of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), if not its practice, has become ubiquitous in the water industry. It’s hard to escape the feeling that following the evolution from manual to drive-by metering, the power and efficiency of AMI will soon become a utility standard.

A Rising Tide

Several exhibitors were touting AMI technology during the American Water Works Association’s annual ACE conference, beseeching utilities that hadn’t converted to embrace the digital age.

Few made the case as strongly as Steve Bruskiewicz, a product manager with Aclara who presented “Getting More Value Out Of AMI Infrastructure” at a roundtable session during the conference. He noted that with AMI’s ability to gather massive data at highly-regular intervals, the obvious benefits for utilities include billing department efficiency and improved customer service, among others.

With these improvements established, it seems like only a matter of time before the majority of utilities embrace this new wave. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that between the residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation sectors, nearly 52 million AMI installations are currently in place. In 2013, Bloomberg predicted that the nation’s water utilities will spend $2 billion on smart meter infrastructure upgrades through 2020.

“You’ve got all this data coming in,” Bruskiewicz said. “You get 24 readings a day from every customer. What do you do with all of that data?”

The answer to that question depends on outlook. Today, most utilities use that data to relay detailed information about water use to customers and bill with more precision than ever. If they take a wider view, the answer could be even more inspiring.

Measuring Loss

 “I think the future of AMI is in the adaption and implementation of the other features that AMI brings forth,” said Tory Wagoner, PE, PLS (professional land surveyor) at Cavanaugh & Associates, a water efficiency consulting firm. “Our primary focus is supply-side conservation and managing non-revenue water, so our belief is that as these practices become adopted on a more widespread basis, the data AMI provides can be utilized in effective, meaningful ways.”

While many utilities cannot justify the infrastructure costs of installing AMI, Wagoner believes this is because they are only considering the meter efficiency benefits of the technology. To unlock its true power, they need to utilize it as a tool for direct non-revenue water loss measurement.

“Establishing baseline information [of water use] and then beginning to look for anomalies will allow for an advanced management of non-revenue water and more,” he said.

To make the most of AMI, Wagoner implores users to implement the technology for district meter analysis, closely monitoring water losses like never before.

“The ability to have constant consumption volumes that can be synchronized with supply volumes provides the utility with constant water balance calculations,” he said. “This allows them to greatly reduce the awareness time for new breaks in their system and learn about any other events that happen outside of the steady-state operations.”

The Data Flood

The constant and convenient data being provided by AMI affords utilities a breakthrough opportunity to gauge consumption and note even the tiniest anomaly, pointing them towards leaks. However, too much of any good thing, even consumption data, poses its own problems.

Wagoner said that many of the utilities that have made the AMI investment aren’t getting as much out of the technology as they could be. In his experience, most expect the technology to solve all of their resource insufficiencies while the sheer amount of data coming in can overwhelm a utility without the systems to manage and utilize it.

That issue can be solved by taking the time to consider how the technology will be utilized before implementation. It’s vital to think about which AMI system will meet the specified needs and supply the appropriate amount of data, as not all are created equal.

“What we often see is that each of the specific systems often have their ‘sweet spot’ where their product is a better fit,” said Wagoner. “Most are not a fit for every utility, but finding the right fit for each utility is the key.”

Wave Of The Future

As AMI continues to embed itself in the industry, its applications are only going to become more robust and highly integrated with other utility systems. To Wagoner, the future of the technology lies in its potential to assimilate with evolving work order, GIS, finance, billing, metering, and asset management systems.

“I believe data integration with other systems is one [AMI function] that is continuing to emerge,” said Wagoner. “The AMI suppliers will need to make sure they achieve the proper balance of protecting their data protocols while maintaining integration with other software products and providers.”

Although some utilities with AMI may not realize it yet, the future is in their hands.