Dallas Suburb Attacks Water Loss With New Meters

Driven by water loss problems, a Dallas suburb is diving into smart-meter technology for the first time.

"We were buying 3 billion gallons a year and only selling two-thirds of that. We had a 35 percent unaccounted loss," Melissa Valadez-Cummings, assistant city manager for Cedar Hill, told ComputerWorld.

It turns out old technology — in this case, water meters — were playing a major role in the city’s water-loss problem.

“The biggest part of that loss wasn't leaks in the ground. Instead, a comprehensive review with water utility software-as-a-service provider Fathom, based in Phoenix, found that the biggest problem was meters that weren't being billed or were billed for the wrong amount,” ComputerWorld reported.

The city replaced its old meters, which required manual readings, with wireless meters, spending about $9 million on meters as well as software upgrades designed to streamline billing and revenue management, the report said. The city expects to recoup the cost within seven years as a result of efficiencies.

“With the Fathom system, customers can record average monthly water usage, then get email or text alerts when water usage is exceeding that rate within hours of when the water flow increases. A customer might discover a leaky toilet or pipe weeks before the monthly bill arrives, a potentially big savings on water and the cost for the water,” the report said.

Fathom's software and systems are connected to about 4 million meters at a couple hundred U.S. utilities, according to Fathom President Jason Bethke, per the report. He claimed that Fathom customers see a revenue bump of 10 percent.

"Our primary mission is to help utilities adopt technology to be more financially stable, and the benefit is that customers use less water," Bethke said. "They are making more money with less water."

Cedar Hill officials say the project was motivated in part by a push from customers to access better water-usage data.

“Residents have wanted more than one data point per month so they could better monitor their usage. They will be able to go online or use a mobile app to view their account, pay their bill instantly and make better informed decisions about water consumption, including the use of irrigation systems,” the city says.

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) has various benefits over automated meter reading (AMR) solutions.

A report from Black & Veatch explained: “AMI helps utilities streamline their billing process in many ways. These include reducing the labor necessary to read traditional water meters, as well as streamlined bill generation. Furthermore, the data gathered by AMI can reveal problematic areas within the system and better manage the production, storage and distribution of water. It can also help utilities substantially decrease non-revenue water by detecting water loss both in the distribution network and at customer end-points — a huge cost for utilities.”

To read more about non-revenue water visit Water Online’s Water Loss Prevention Solutions Center.