The 37 million gallon per day William B. Cater Water Treatment plant serves City of Santa Barbara with the majority of its drinking water while also supplying treated water to the districts of Montecito Water, Carpinteria Valley Water, Goleta Water, and La Cumbre Water.
A Municipal Water Plant in the Southeast United States treats and supplies potable water to a large metropolitan area. Part of the process requires accurate flow measurement of the water from individual pumps to the main distribution system. Part of the process requires accurate flow measurement of the water from individual pumps to the main distribution system.
Bethpage Water District’s (New York) outdated water metering system led to customer service concerns, such as a slow response time for detecting leaks and insufficient data for billing inquiries.
A common drive among inventors is the hope of building “a better mouse trap.” There may be products that satisfy their users every day, but are crying out for improvement. One company has found that opportunity in water meters, taking a technology that has worked in the industrial space and offering it for the first time for residential applications.
Because of its location in the southwestern U.S., Santa Fe, NM, is known to have a scarce and precious water supply. In 2013, Santa Fe’s Water Division became aware that its drive-by meter reading system was failing. Working with Badger Meter, the city’s Water Division chose to implement the BEACON® Advanced Metering Analytics (AMA) managed solution with ORION® Cellular endpoints, as well as E-Series® Ultrasonic meters.
Bethpage Water District’s (New York) outdated water metering system led to customer service concerns, such as a slow response time for detecting leaks and insufficient data for billing inquiries. By installing new meters and advanced metering analytics software, the district increased visibility into its operations, resulting in greater revenue and improved customer service.
In California, water is precious, competition for water is fierce and conservation is critical. In the midst of the state’s worst drought to date, Governor Jerry Brown declared historic statewide mandatory water restrictions calling for a 25 percent reduction in water usage through February 2016.
Advancements targeting the challenges related to a flooded meter pit environment have occurred slowly over the years, with limited success.
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.
Municipality benefits from guaranteed savings, reduced costs, and customer service accolades
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.
Jericho Water District (JWD) is one of the largest water districts in New York, serving 58,000 people through 18,604 residential and commercial service connections on Long Island.
When the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) implemented a STAR® network system to read meters for its nine million customers, it never expected that the benefits of the system would extend beyond simple meter reading.
Easton Suburban Water Authority (ESWA) is in the business of providing water to its customers, not managing technology. One summer, Technology Manager Tim Ryan had enough with focusing valuable time and resources on the utility’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) IT network and servers.
Recordall Compound Series Meters from Badger Meter combine two metering technologies in one innovative package. A positive displacement chamber measures low flow, while a turbine chamber records high flow. These meters are an ideal choice for facilities that experience rapid and wide fluctuations in water demand, such as hospitals, universities, residential complexes and manufacturing or processing facilities.
The Interpreter Universal AMR Register System unites your current meter infrastructure with a powerful voice by providing a simple, cost-effective smart AMR retrofit register design.
The E-Series® Ultrasonic Plus with integrated shutoff valve has a patented flow restriction valve that supports open, closed and partial closed settings. It's permanent seal maximizes field life through a patent pending magnetic coupled valve. With a flexible, modular design, you can install the meter now and install the valve in the field later. The valve actuation and management is controlled through BEACON® AMA software.
Organizer is Seeq’s application for engineers and managers to assemble and distribute Seeq analyses as reports, dashboards, and web pages.
The BEACON® Advanced Metering Analytics (AMA) traditional fixed network solution from Badger Meter combines the power of the intuitive, cloud-based BEACON AMA software with proven ORION® Fixed Network (SE) endpoint and network gateway transceiver technology to provide utility management with hourly interval metering data to better manage their utility and resources.
DESIGN
The water utility industry is changing as the cost of treating and delivering water is constantly rising. Utilities need to be more efficient while utilizing fewer resources. Increased consumer awareness and higher water bills must be met with responsive customer service. Information is being demanded to analyze billing reads and consumption patterns. Large end-users are looking for techniques to assist with conservation and cost controls. Clearly, demands upon water industry professionals are increasing.
Building smart cities takes technology and networking solutions with in-depth views and infrastructure control. The Sensus FlexNet® communication network is a long-range radio network that provides scalable and reliable two-way infrastructure.
The Aclara RF Network Data Collector Unit II (DCU) for water and gas utilities enhances your AMI network by providing reliable and flexible, two-way communications for water and gas meters.
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.
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.
Getting consumers to buy in to the value of water has always been tricky. Many people have been hearing messages about saving water for years but to little effect.
Utility workers will remember a time when meter reading meant driving to a customer’s house, walking up to their meter and manually recording water use. Those days were replaced with the now standard use of walk- and drive-by meter readers. That standard, like its predecessor, is poised to be supplanted by the next wave in metering technology.
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
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, now part of the Hubbell Power Systems family of brands, is a world-class supplier of smart infrastructure solutions (SIS) and services to more than 800 water, gas, and electric utilities globally. Aclara SIS offerings include smart meters and other field devices, advanced metering infrastructure and software and services that enable utilities to predict and respond to conditions, leverage their distribution networks effectively, and engage with their customers.
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.
