In the Spring of 2018, Matchpoint was contracted by the City of Arlington to provide UAV-Based Leak Detection after onsite leaks proved to be evasive and difficult to locate using traditional leak detection methods. At that point, Arlington enlisted Matchpoint’s UAV services to locate the leak in a less traditional, but innovative new way — using the UAV to analyze RGB and thermal imagery.
The city of Laredo, Texas, had been walking to read its 67,543 water meters – 59,138 residential and 8,405 commercial accounts – using a manual method that took up to ten staff on the streets nearly an entire month to read to meet a monthly billing schedule. With the dawn of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems, the City began their search for the right metering solution for the department’s needs.
City Utilities of Springfield, MO, a multiservice utility delivering electricity, natural gas, and water services to more than 106,000 customers, needed a way to provide timely data about consumption and efficiency to customers across its three different service offerings. While existing technology offered visibility into gas and electricity consumption for the utility and its customers, the options for managing water usage were limited.
The biggest flood in decades roared through the Village of Johnson City, NY, one day in September 2011, and the water department lost everything, including their office, which was submerged in several feet of water. Working with Neptune Technology Group, Johnson City began installation of its new Neptune meters, along with E-Coder®)R900i™ combination solid state absolute encoder/RF meter interface units.
Located in the San Joaquin Valley of Northern California, an area hit hard by recent droughts, the City of Merced’s Water System Division appreciates the value of water and successful water management. Strict water mandates, put into effect across California after the historic droughts of 2014 and 2015, along with continuing population growth, made the city’s need for flexible and efficient water management solutions more critical than ever.
The City of Clermont, Florida is located in Lake County 22 miles west of Orlando; and, like its neighbor, has an economy driven largely by tourism.
The HR-E LCD encoder has a 9-digit Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) to show consumption, flow and alarm information. The display automatically toggles between 9-digit and 6-digit consumption, rate of flow and meter model.
Since the early 1980s, the 900 MHz frequency band has been widely used for wireless communications in consumer, business, and municipal applications.
Communities around the world are facing a growing storm. Complex challenges including water scarcity, changing demographics, extreme weather patterns, and aging or overly stressed infrastructure are colliding to threaten critical water, energy, transport, enterprise and health networks. The water industry is in the eye of the storm.
After analyzing annual water loss audits for the city of Dallas, GA, the team discovered significant issues around non-revenue water. In 2014, real and apparent water loss accounted for 31.3 million gallons — nearly 20 percent of the city’s total water supplied for the year — which meant lost revenue for the city.
The City of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, had been using a drive-by Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system to read all of its meters since 2010, but according to Rob Stark, utility supervisor for the City of Coeur d’Alene Water Department, it wasn’t realizing the full benefits with its existing system.
Water utility managers today face a conundrum. The American Water Works Association (AWWA) recommends a water utility strive for non-revenue water loss at 10-15 percent, but managers know that many systems lose as much as 50 percent. Discovering where these losses occur is difficult.
The Public Works Utilities of Billings, Montana, began their partnership with Neptune Technology back in the 1950s and was an early adopter of Neptune’s ARB® absolute encoder meter reading technology in the 1960s.
The primary goal of public or privately owned utilities has always been to cost-effectively and efficiently deliver electricity, gas, and water to consumers. However, utilities today cope with added pressures. They are being asked to do more with less, contending with smaller workforces and less capital expenditures while at the same time trying to prevent assets from becoming obsolete. By Aclara
You may be surrounded by data, but starved for insights. To go beyond basic meter reading and billing, your utility needs tools that provide a deeper understanding of the data you collect — that turn it into meaningful information for a smart water network.
Problems with Non-Revenue Water? Wasting time and money on truck rolls for off-cycle meter readings? Dealing with customer complaints over high water bills? Get a fix on the solution with Neptune’s R450™ System and get it all fixed from the start.
Maximize your revenue stream across a wide range of small commercial applications with our Intermediate MS Multi-Jets and capture low flow readings where turbine meters fall short.
Badger Meter offers the latest innovations in high resolution encoder technology with the release of the HR-E LCD and HR-E encoders. Our high resolution encoders provide utilities with much more than just a reading. Whether you choose the 9-digit LCD or the 8-dial HR-E encoder, the high resolution encoded output provides leak detection and other critical information through the reading system to help utilities manage their water. High resolution encoders utilize the industry standard communication protocol, and do not require programming or setting adjustments during installation or wire repair. And, through a unique sealing process that eliminates gaskets, Badger Meter encoders are built to withstand harsh environments including flooded pits.
Aclara’s through-the-lid antenna lets you choose how to install communications modules in meter pits. You decide whether to reuse current metal lids or replace them with RF-permeable ones. Modules installed with the antenna provide equivalent communications performance to those mounted under RF-permeable lids.
Raw data from handheld field computers, drive-by AMR, fixed network, or 3G Cellular is easily made actionable under a single data management system.
Positive displacement water meter with Sensus® electronic register+™.
SR II meters consist of three basic components: maincase, measuring chamber and sealed register. Maincases are made of Bismuth BiAlloy CDA89836 or EnviroBrass™ II C89520 with externally-threaded spuds. Registers are housed in a bonnet of synthetic polymer.
The LoRa Alliance is a non-profit association of members who are collaborating together to drive the adoption of a communication protocol that offers long range, long battery life and open architecture. For water utilities specifically, the LoRa wide area network (WAN) would allow devices from multiple manufacturers to be able to communicate with each other across long distances.
With ever more sophisticated metering systems and software, utilities are racing to gain data-driven insights about their network beyond the traditional consumption metrics for billing purposes. As Christine Scorza, Senior Director of Product Management Software for Aclara explains in this Water Online interview, revenue assurance, leak detection, and even meter right-sizing have all become possible beyond billing with the advancement of sensors, big data storage and analytics in the water industry.
Aclara Technologies has been on a tear over the past 12 months. Acquiring General Electric’s meter business and the installation business Smart Grid Solutions. Rebranding the business and digging deeper into its customers’ needs to create metering solutions for the long run.
Historically, a mechanical water meter has lost accuracy over its life time as parts wear and its mechanics deteriorate. However, the new Sonata meter from Master Meter is a non-moving parts product utilizing ultrasonic flow measurement sensor technology to help reduce inaccurate water measurement.
Turning off water service for non-payment is one of the hardest parts of the job for utility workers. It can also be dangerous as agitated consumers can become verbally and sometimes physically abusive seeing their water service shut off. A new remotely-controlled meter helps remove workers from the chance of physical confrontation.
AMI solutions play an important role in the drought in the U.S. today. It gives the utilities the ability to collect very granular data about the consumption, as well as things that are going on in the distribution network. Joe Ball, Director of Solutions Marketing for Water with Itron, sat down with Water Online Radio to tell us more.
E-Series ultrasonic meters offer the latest in innovative electronic metering technology with the release of the new e-series ultrasonic plus with integrated shut-off valve. Offering all of the benefits of the original e-series meter, the ultrasonic plus features a patented flow restriction valve that supports open, closed, and partial closed settings. It allows water utilities to actuate the valve remotely to temporarily restrict water service safely and efficiently. Watch the full video to learn more.
Every day you work to optimize your operations, protect quality, find innovative solutions, and reduce costs.
Water Meters|Automatic Meter Reading Systems|Fire Service Meters|Control Instrumentation
Maximize efficiencies. Enhance revenue. Improve customer service. Conserve precious natural resources. You can do it all with ARB® Utility Management Systems™ from Neptune. Since 1892, Neptune has provided utility metering systems that save time, money, and labor.
Mueller Water Products, Inc. manufactures and markets products and services that are used in the transmission and distribution of safe, clean drinking water and in water treatment facilities throughout North America.
Water Meter Manufacturer|National Chain of Distributors for Sales and Service|Award-Winning AMR Wireless RF Meters
Badger Meter is a leading manufacturer and marketer of flow measurement and control products, serving water utilities, municipalities and industrial customers worldwide. Measuring a variety of liquids, from potable water to oil and lubricants, to industrial processes, our products are known for their high degree of accuracy, long-lasting durability, and their ability to provide valuable and timely measurement information to our customers.
Aclara is a world-class supplier of smart infrastructure technologies to water, gas and electric utilities globally. Over 700 utilities in nine countries rely on proven Aclara solutions to connect with their customers. Visit us at www.Aclara.com and follow us on Twitter @AclaraSolutions.
ABOUT AMR, AMI & METERING
Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) is a system and process used to remotely collect water meter data without the physical presence of personnel at the reading point. The system can be configured to read multiple meters at exactly the same point in time such as midnight or at the end of every month. Automatic Meter Readers (AMR) also known as SMART Meters afford suppliers with a cost effective solution to meter reading. Automatic meter readers use a real time wireless communication network to connect digital water meters with a central management system. Digital water meters use ultrasonic measurement technology to provide precise meter readings. AMR is a key driver of efficiency for water utilities by lowering costs by optimizing maintenance interventions and lowering reading operations. An effective AMR system can only work if the water meter has a pulse out where a radio transmitter will be attached to it. Multiple meter readings will then be transmitted to a device called the repeater. Using GPRS the readings will be transmitted to a server. The data can then be obtained from the server for use. AMR devices incorporate smart image recognition technology (OCR – Optical Character Recognition), BPL (Broadband Power line) as well as PLC (Power line Communications) technologies.
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) are the systems beyond simply the meters that allow utility professionals to not only collect and analyze water usage, but also communicate back to metering devices, either on request or on a schedule. These systems include electronic/digital hardware and software providing continuously available remote communications. A typical AMI solution equips the customer with advanced solid state, electronic AMR meters that collect time-based data. These meters have the ability to transmit the collected data through commonly available fixed networks such as Broadband over Power Line (BPL), Power Line Communications (PLC), Fixed Radio Frequency (RF) networks, and public networks (e.g., landline, cellular, paging). The meter data are received by the AMI host system and sent to the Meter Data Management System (MDMS) that manages data storage and analysis to provide the information in useful form to the utility.
Utilities are turning toward advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems as part of larger “Smart Grid” initiatives. AMI extends current advanced meter reading (AMR) technology by providing two way meter communications, allowing commands to be sent toward the home for multiple purposes, including “time-of-use” pricing information, demand-response actions, or remote service disconnects.
