Bethpage Water District’s (New York) outdated water metering system led to customer service concerns, such as a slow response time for detecting leaks and insufficient data for billing inquiries.
Providing clean drinking water to its citizens since the early 1800s, Nashville’s city government has a deep-rooted history in the water industry. Today, Nashville Metro Water Services (MWS) serves more than 191,000 customers in Nashville and surrounding counties.
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.
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.
The City of Gordon Texas’s drinking water facility was struck by lightning. Thinking long term, and desiring the latest technology available, the City took this opportunity to upgrade their on-line instrumentation with a range of new continuous monitoring on-line instruments including chlorine analyzers, pH monitoring, temperature monitoring, and turbidity monitoring.
While utilities use sophisticated systems to supply clean water as well as collect and treat wastewater, the effort to manage incidents and outages leaves room for improvement. Water utilities often rely on manual processes to handle customer reports of leaks, loss-of-service or quality issues.
Located in rural Kentucky, the small town of Wingo may seem like an unlikely candidate to become the first city in the state to employ a complete Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system. However, when it came time to upgrade its meter reading system, the city wanted a comprehensive water utility solution and chose the ORION Fixed Network (SE) system from Badger Meter.
Accurate and dependable water metering is more important than ever for today’s water utilities. Although utility managers are tasked with meeting tight budgets, it is imperative for utilities to invest in their water metering infrastructure. When making meter selection decisions, utilities must consider several factors. These include service size, application, and expected flow rates. There is no “one type fits all” application when it comes to meter technologies.
Some wastewater applications require chlorine residuals greater than can be effectively monitored using DPD due to the oxidation of the Wurster dye to a colorless Imine. Such applications include industrial wastewater processes that inherently have a high chlorine demand thereby requiring a more robust monitoring method.
Advancements targeting the challenges related to a flooded meter pit environment have occurred slowly over the years, with limited success.
For many years, ultrasonic metering has been utilized for large scale liquid and gas measurement. However, it is a relatively new technology for small meter applications — particularly those designed for potable water.
Municipality benefits from guaranteed savings, reduced costs, and customer service accolades
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.
In 2008, the public utility manager in Ogden City, Utah sent out a request for proposal on a system-wide changeout of its meters, absolute encoders, and radio frequency meter interface units (RF MIUs), with a goal of eliminating estimating and replacing all their meters with AMR technology to read year-round. Read the full case study to learn more.
Continuing the tradition of ground breaking products that add exciting new capabilities for smart, remote monitoring in water and wastewater networks.
The Vehicle Gateway Base Station (VGB) is a portable radio-based device used for the acquisition of data from utility meters and other field-based diagnostic instruments. The VGB is compact and portable, allowing it to be used in any vehicle providing 12-volt DC power.
The 3G Mobile AMR solution provides most every benefit associated with fixed network — without the infrastructure — in a convenient cost-effective package.
Improve accuracy range and extend meter service life for schools, hospitals, retail centers and other general commercial applications with our OMNI™ Turbo (T²), one of the most technologically advanced water meters on the market today. And you don’t have be concerned about sustained flow rates because there are no restrictions, thanks to its continuous operating range. OMNI T² meters are made of epoxy-coated ductile iron and are available in 1.5″-10″ sizes.
ProFieldENCORE’S modular design and open interface architecture means that you can license as many or as few of ProFieldENCORE’S modules as you need. Let our experts help you to design an implementation model that fits your specific needs and circumstances.
Many businesses today – landscape service companies, construction and pool contractors, for example – often need a temporary source of water, and they are willing to pay for it.
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.
The Integral HOT ROD™ is a high performance, transmitter designed for mobile AMR.
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
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, 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.
