Don Talend Automatic Metering Infrastructure Implementation Article

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BY DON TALEND
I
n general, Automatic Metering
Infrastructure (AMI) is no longer
thought of as the latest technol-
ogy to come along. But as AMI
technology providers improve
their data collection capabilities, water
utility managers are making increasingly
effective use of AMI data. The result is
improved conservation at the utility level
as it becomes easier to discover leaks
—and help customers save money as the
utilities make them increasingly aware of
their consumption habits.
In this era of economic contrac-
tion, much recent talk surrounds the
nation’s aging infrastructure, including
water mains in many industrial cities
that were built in the early 20th century.
Capstone Metering LLC cites research
indicating that distribution systems
around the world are losing an average
of 26% of treated water totaling almost
$14 billion in lost revenues. The United
States Geologic Survey estimates that 1.7
trillion gallons of water are lost per year,
at a national cost of $2.6 billion per year.
For developed countries, non-revenue
water often represents 20% of the total
water withdrawn from the environment.
In developing nations, non-revenue water
can account for as much as 50% due to
distribution system leaks, theft, and poor
measurement techniques.
With tax bases shrinking in many
communities, reducing non-revenue wa-
ter loss is not a matter of choice. Increas-
ingly granular and real-time AMI data
are making this more realistic.
John Sala, director of marketing for
system software and collection hardware
for AMI provider Neptune Technology
Group, contends that the real difference
between automatic meter reading (AMR)
technology and AMI is how the data are
utilized. He refers to a presentation he
has developed in which he describes how
multiple generations of AMR technology
have produced one output—a bill—and
how AMI allows in-depth data analysis
and conservation.
The issues holding water utilities
back from implementing AMI are techni-
cal in nature, according to Sala. While
electric utilities invest significant resourc-
es in AMI control communications, con-
trolling multiple systems in water AMI is
extraordinarily technology-heavy.
“Utility managers understand the
business benefits they want, but they don’t
Realizing the
potential of AMI
means capturing
vast quantities
of consumption
data—and analyzing
the data to achieve
business objectives.
CAPSTONEMETERING
ALIGNING TECHNOLOGY, STRATEGY

necessarily have the technical where-
withal to understand that they cannot
automatically start integrating their
work order processing because they put
an AMI system in place,” he says. “The
work order system and AMI need to
be talking to each other—that requires
them to both interface with each other,
and that doesn’t happen by chance.”
Also, the water utility industry lacks
a standard communications protocol
similar to the electric industry’s Mul-
tiSpeak Specification, creating a chal-
lenge for communications among water
systems, Sala points out.
Despite the challenges, implement-
ing AMI results in improved customer
service, says Mike Healy, public works
assistant director for the City of Grass
Valley, CA, and chair of the American
Public Works Association’s Water Re-
sources Management Committee. “The
AMI systems of today are a benefit to
any and all utilities, and I think the more
and more we take advantage of the tools
that are out there and are able to see
things through the deployment of this
system, the sky will be the limit on how
we’re going to be able use these manage-
ment tools to the benefit of our custom-
ers,” he says.
Several AMI success stories have
emerged in recent years—including in
two of America’s largest and oldest cities.
BOSTON SLASHES NON-REVENUE WATER
In the late 1990s, the Boston Water and
Sewer Commission (BWSC) received a
$23 million allocation from its board to
upgrade about 88,000 meters to radio
frequency (RF) technology. This fol-
lowed a successful pilot study on about
1,400 Aclara STAR Network Meter
Transmission Units (MTUs). Combined
with STAR Network Data Collector
Units (DCUs) and a STAR Network
Control Computer, BWSC had the
building blocks of an AMI system.
Boston, MA, had utilized meters
since around 1900 and, about 30 years
ago, made its first foray into AMR by
installing remote reading devices outside
of homes and buildings. Meter readers
took readings from outside, wrote them
down, and entered the readings into
handheld computers.
“But true automatic meter reading is
when you can sit in this building and get
readings every day,” says Mark
Aigen, meter services director
for BWSC, who oversaw the
AMI implementation and
continues to consult for the commission.
Aigen recalls that many vendors of-
fered solutions that would have allowed
an eventual transition from drive-by
AMR to AMI. “I think the position of
the Commission at the time was: ‘Why
should we wait?’ So we went with the
fixed network system rather than going
to a drive-by.” Aclara’s sister company
Hexagram, Honeywell, and ABB teamed
up on the implementation.
Mark Medico, BWSC’s deputy su-
perintendent of special projects, recalls
that readings were being taken three
times a month on approximately 2,000
meters that accounted for about half the
water consumption. The remainder were
read every other month, and bills were
estimated in the in-between month. Jay
Porter, chief operating officer for BWSC,
says that inbound telephony was tried
for transmitting the readings at first, but
system maintenance was a problem.
“Eventually, it came down to a
customer service decision,” he says, add-
ing that the Internet, which had become
publicly available a few years earlier,
promised to aid implementation. “We
were going to go out and change the
meters anyway. We had half a bite of the
apple, so we decided that if we were go-
ing to change the meters out, we might
as well go with the MTUs.”
Among the equipment
were 52 DCUs that receive
readings from MTUs via
cellular technology; the MTUs take
readings every six hours. Starting at
9 p.m.—when Verizon gives BWSC free
time—the DCUs send the readings to
three different computers over a total of
12 phone lines; if one of four lines per
computer is busy, the call bounces to
another line. Each DCU is programmed
with two numbers in case a modem
goes down. Each computer uploads the
data to an SQL server that parses the
data and larger customers receive Web-
based consumption reports.
More importantly, customer
service representatives have access to
reports, including high/low consump-
tion, negative readings, and zero read-
ings. The representatives can compare
the past two months to the past seven
days, and anything exceeding 200% ne-
cessitates a phone call to the customer,
who is made aware of a possible leak.
Another group performs revenue audit-
ing and analysis and looks for instances
of low usage, which might indicate theft
of service or a bypass.
“We have more outgoing calls on
the customer service side than we have
incoming calls,” says Porter, adding
that billing errors have been cut by
75% to 80%.
Medico reports that AMI, combined
Neptune AMI software
reveals operating
metrics, consumption,
and endpoint locations.
NEPTUNE

with capital upgrades to its water distribution network, has
helped BWSC to cut its non-revenue water from as high as
20%-plus to less than 10% in the past 10 years. Porter adds
that BWSC has established “district metering areas” (DMAs)
and calculates non-revenue water by subtracting equivalent
dwelling units from water consumption for a given DMA
every couple of weeks. If the total is above 10% or so, the
commission blankets the DMA with leak-detection devices
to pinpoint the leak.
Better leak detection has paid off financially, Porter
says, referring to a hospital and apartment complex that paid
$1 million and $100,000 in catchup bills, respectively. The
combination of improved leak detection, more water efficient
home appliances, and consumption of bottled water has al-
lowed the commission to reduce water purchases by 26% since
1993. As a result, BWSC has averaged only a 2% rate increase
over the past several years, Porter adds.
“All of the information that we’ve been gathering and
massaging for 10 years has made us hungrier for even more
information,” says Aigen.
DETROIT JUMPS TO CUTTING EDGE
Detroit, MI, jumped from manual meter reading to AMI, but
skipped AMR along the way. Rodney Johnson, Detroit Water
and Sewerage Department assistant director, recalls that the
city also began a bidding process for AMR system implemen-
tation in the late 1990s. After nearly 10 years, though, the
AMR initiative was halted.
“Drive-by was our focus at first, but when that request for
proposals went out and we received a bid that offered AMI, we
found that there were many more things that we could accom-
plish that we weren’t going to be able to do with drive-by,” he says.
Several vendors claimed that their systems would allow
an eventual transition into AMI from AMR, but it would be
labor-intensive because a large number of transmitters would
have to be replaced anyway. “We couldn’t find a manufacturer
who could install a drive-by system and then sort of flip the
switch to a fixed network,” adds Johnson.
“At that point, the discussion really became a matter of
doing drive-by and being happy with that for 15 or 20 years,
or doing a fixed network now and live with that for the next
20 years or so,” he continues. “It took us several years to get
through to where we are, which is fixed network.”
Around 2006, the city began implementing Itron’s Water
SaveSource AMI system, which is based on high-power, 1-W RF
transceivers in the meter endpoints that provide a long-range
wireless link between the endpoints and neighborhood collec-
tors, and a redundant star network topology in which meter
endpoints and collection devices have multiple communication
paths. The system also provides grouping capabilities that allow
the utility to compare supervisory control and data acquisition
systems (SCADA) information for leak
indications, as well as consumer consump-
tion data. To date, the city has gotten
about 80% of its roughly 260,000 custom-
ers on the system, according to Johnson.
The network currently consists of
about 240,000 meters and about 240,000
transmitters. About one collector, that serves as an intermediary
between the transmitters and a central meter data management
system, is set up per square mile of the city, for a total of about
140, on public buildings such as schools, police stations, fire sta-
tions, libraries, public housing, and water facilities. A few other
collectors were deployed on billboards and cell towers. Redun-
dancy is built into the system; the system is designed such that
every transmitter interfaces with at least two collectors. Every
two hours, the collectors transmit meter data to a meter data
management (MDM) system that was designed by Hewlett-
Packard via cellular technology. The redundant MDM system
reads data from a meter via only one collector, though multiple
units have collected the meter’s data. The system also sends 25
hourly interval readings and indicates what the readings were
for each of the past several hours ago so that if a reading is
missed, the city can figure out what the reading should be.
Johnson points out that the city’s water billing system, its
Itron Service-Link Mobile Workforce Automation Technology
field work-order system, and MDM system are seamlessly con-
nected. The field work-order system informs the billing system
when a connection has been made. The billing system informs
the MDM system when a reading is required. Customer
service representatives can also request on-demand readings
from the MDM system.
The city can run several standard reports via the MDM sys-
tem, such as ones showing which meters emitted tamper alarms.
Johnson reports that the city also runs several field work-order
reports indicating worker productivity or how many four-hour
“window” appointments were missed, for example.
The city uses this information to improve customer service,
Johnson says. Without AMI and solid data analysis, “Custom-
ers won’t always call you,” he says. “Five may call you, but you
still won’t have a good handle on how many appointments are
being missed. Is it across the board, and we’re just packing in
too much work? Or, is it a problem with a particular crew? Is it
a training issue? Whatever it is, we try to track it down to figure
out what we need to do so we don’t miss appointments.”
Sometimes a customer will dispute a high reading, and the
city uses the interaction as an oppor-
tunity to create awareness of a possible
leak. “It becomes how well we can figure
out what’s going on at a property,” says
Johnson. “To me, that’s one of the biggest
features of a fixed-network system.”
Johnson concludes that a financial
for related articles:
www.waterefficiency.net/AMR-and-AMI
Reducing non-revenue
water loss is not a matter of
choice. Increasingly granular
and real-time AMI data are
making this more realistic.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 WATER EFFICIENCY 15
analysis on its AMI system is difficult to conduct because the
economic downturn has hit Detroit particularly hard, and its
tax base keeps shrinking and adversely affecting the return
on investment. Still, the city no longer needs to attend a large
number of real estate closings every day to get an accurate final
bill, and no longer do at least half of the city’s water bills need
to be estimated every month.
BIGGER NOT NECESSARILY NEEDIER
Smaller, more rural water districts also benefit from implement-
ing AMI systems. They are more spread out and often require
reliable signal transmission over challenging terrain.
Healy’s utility serves about 2,700 customers. The city has
begun implementing a Global Water Fathom AMI system. The
individual components include T-10 water meters; an Aclara
STAR Network Control Computer, STAR Network DCUs,
and a STAR Network AMI system; and an Aclara system with
Neptune E-Coders.
“What really drove us was aging meter equipment and a
desire to get more accountability in our water consumption,”
says Healy of the AMI implementation. “We certainly wanted
to look at new equipment and opportunities that it presented
in the area of conservation and cost containment. From our
perspective, confidence and credibility with our customers be-
gins right at the meter. If we can’t intelligently and accurately
put out a bill that people have confidence in, we’re not doing
right by our customers.”
According to Healy, the system is about 80% implemented.
Multiple meter reads per day are allowing the city to determine
if customers have a leak and contact them with a notification.
“Later, once the system is fully deployed, we’ll begin to in-
tegrate that consumption data into our water purchase profile,”
he says. “If we can save on raw water purchases, it certainly
will be an advantage.” It will also be possible for the city to
benchmark consumption by facility type and build exception
reports that indicate to customers how much excessive con-
sumption costs them every month.
Noting that the community is rather hilly and topographi-
cally diverse, Healy recalls that Global Water Fathom got the
system deployed to operate reliably. The city set an objective of
each meter being read by two DCUs with a 99% success rate,
which has been achieved so far.
“I think one of the great advantages to having accurate
data, which we’ll have through this system, is that it will allow
our city council to offer alternatives to the traditional rate
structure,” says Healy, adding that a new rate structure might
be based on both system capital costs and day-to-day operat-
ing costs. “The more you’re able to fairly bill for the cost of
water and have an ability to offer your controlling board—in
our case, the city council—more options in the way to reach
financial sustainability in utilities such as ours, the more it’s an
advantage to each and every one of our customers.”
The Chesterfield County Rural Water Company (CCRWC),
a privately held nonprofit utility in South Carolina, has about
22,000 residents spread throughout an 800-plus square-mile terri-
tory mainly consisting of agricultural and poultry farms and small
towns. The territory has rolling terrain with a 700-foot elevation
variance, and nearly one-third of it is state and federal wildlife ref-
uge lands. Until 2008, CCRWC used a team of six meter readers
who used handheld readers to take monthly readings.
Despite the challenging terrain, CCRWC had compelling
reasons to implement an AMI system. The readings and service
starts and stops required six trucks to drive six to seven days a
month, using a full tank of gas every day.
CCRWC eventually selected the Sensus FlexNet AMI
system, which provided it with communications via Federal
Communications Commission (FCC)-licensed spectrum and
a 20-year battery life on its meters. The system has Primary-
Use licensing by the FCC and 2 W of power, suiting CCRWC’s
widespread territory and reducing the number of data collec-
tors that otherwise would be needed.
Beginning in August 2008, the AMI system and more
than 7,000 water meters were installed. CCRWC partnered
with the adjacent towns of Cheraw and Chesterfield for tower
placement. The towns allowed CCRWC to use their water
tanks for mounting the antennas, and, in return, the two
towns were allowed to share the antennas and tower gateway
base stations (TGBs). CCRWC leased land from a cooperative
landowner to install an antenna and a TGB for coverage of
the wildlife refuge areas. There CCRWC had two monopoles
deployed, because a typical tower would not meet wildlife
requirements. In all, the network has 14 antennas.
Smart meters equipped with a customer shutoff valve for
water were also installed, allowing customers to turn off their own
water when necessary, e.g., in the event of a leak. Charlie Gray,
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chief executive officer of CCRWC, says that the system assists
with leak detection. Consumption comparisons are made by 12-
hour period. Accounts with a swimming pool, for example, are
annotated so that the customer is not notified of a possible leak.
The system has improved the billing process and, thus,
customer service. The old system was often delayed by holidays
or inclement weather, resulting in a billing cycle that could range
from 27 to 35 days. AMI, in contrast, provides a consistent 30-day
billing cycle. The system is expected to pay for itself in 13 years.
The utility also saves money on fuel and vehicles and has reas-
signed the meter readers to other positions within the utility. Gray
adds that a reduced insurance premium was a pleasant surprise
resulting from the implementation.
CONSERVATION AT CUSTOMER LEVEL
AMI utilization has reached a new plateau
where customers are getting access to
consumption data and becoming better
conservationists.
Porter contends that customer service was not a driving force
for technological upgrades 10 years ago or more. Previously, a
landlord who owned six properties got six different bills accord-
ing to which day of the month a reading was taken. Now the city
can combine the readings and bill on the same day of the month
for all six properties. A single bill reveals to the landlord the
overall cost of water consumption, often spurring conservation
measures, Porter says. For example, the Boston Housing Author-
ity used to be the city’s largest water customer and has dropped a
few spots since receiving consumption reports.
A study in which the Coachella Valley Water District
(CVWD) in southern California teamed up with Master Meter
indicates that AMI can serve as a key element in reducing water
consumption during electrical peak periods in the residential sec-
tor. CVWD is participating in the California Time of Use Water
Meter Rate Study Project, funded by the California Energy Com-
mission Public Interest Energy Research Program.
CVWD personnel and Master Meter installed meters and
the fixed-base AMI system in March and April 2009. In addi-
tion, boosters and repeater and concentrator antennas were
installed to transmit the interval water use data to the district
office. CVWD currently uses the Master Meter Dialog 3G Mo-
bile AMR system for the monthly reading of more than 10,600
water meters. This study required hourly readings as close
to the top of each hour as possible. Wireless Meter Interface
Units were added to existing meters to allow Dialog 3G meter-
integrated radios to forward 15-minute meter reading data
and alarms over a proposed fixed-network AMI system. The
system is designed to easily migrate to a fixed-network AMI
system without losing its mobile AMR capabilities.
CVWD had 148 boosters installed on existing residential
single-family detached homes, commercial strip malls, and
landscaping irrigation customers in the City of Palm Desert,
CA. The use of the boosters allowed
quick implementation of the AMI
system. A DCU and a field concentrator
were installed in an existing CVWD fa-
cility in Palm Desert, and antennas were
deployed on an existing CVWD tower.
Each of the three customer categories was subdivided
into control and intervention groups. Intervention partici-
pants were given $25 per month for participating and asked to
reduce their water usage during Southern California Edison’s
peak period of weekdays from noon to 6 p.m., from June to
September 2009. The goal was to determine if peak electricity
usage could be favorably impacted by driving down peak water
demand through actively sharing consumption information.
Residential peak period water reductions were statistically
significant—more than 50%—while business peak period wa-
ter reductions were not: about 25%. Irrigation did not experi-
ence peak-period water reductions.
SMART GRID FOR WATER
Several technological advancements in AMI have emerged in
recent years, spurring talk of a “Smart Grid for Water.”
According to Global Water Fathom, the Smart Grid for
Water facilitates revenue assurance, responsible water resourc-
es management, engaging the consumer
in conservation, and water asset manage-
ment. When deployed pragmatically, the
Smart Grid for Water tears down depart-
mental information silos. To be effective,
the Smart Grid for Water must integrate
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A Chesterfield
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meter
SENSUSMETERINGSYSTEMS

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 WATER EFFICIENCY 17
AMI, CIS, SCADA, asset management/work order generation
and control, GIS, and analytics engines.
Doug McCall, director of business development and mar-
keting at Sensus Metering Systems, notes that Sensus focused on
developing a Smart Grid for Water system with FlexNet, which
is designed for the unique requirements of water conservation.
The system was also designed for true two-way operation; the
meters continuously “listen” for firmware updates and on-
demand alerts from the utility. Additionally, the system allows
control of valves at either the meter level or at the central control
level, and customer service representatives can also make on-
demand reads. The system also has the capability of providing
Smart Grid for Water applications such as pressure equalization,
pumping efficiency optimization, emergency shutoff, and early
detection for arsenic, according to McCall.
Neptune’s ARB FixedBase AMI system is designed to per-
form endpoint-level analysis on readings rather backhauling
all that data, according to Sala. Prolific readings are also taken
every 15 minutes, he adds, increasing the reliability of analysis.
Other major components of Neptune’s solution include its
N_Sight software application for customer service and a cus-
tomizable KPI (Key Performance Indicators) dashboard.
Backflow notifications and integrated pressure monitor-
ing are a couple of “smart” functions that the Capstone meter
can perform, according to the manufacturer. Pressure moni-
toring can be particularly beneficial to many utilities that are
mandated to maintain a minimum pressure requirement to
avoid infrastructure damage, according to Capstone. In addi-
tion, pressure correlates with energy consumption. The main
idea behind the new meter is to make system operating data
available as quickly as possible so that utility managers can
promptly discover system problems.
Sala adds a dissenting opinion regarding the existence of a
Smart Grid for Water. He believes that the industry will try to
achieve system control similar to the electric industry’s system
controls. The term and accompanying expectations do “a dis-
service to the industry,” he says.
Adding valves and sensors to measure water quality or
pressure to a water distribution network controlled by an AMI
network would greatly increase system complexity, adds Sala.
He also says he foresees more SCADA-like capabilities incor-
porated into AMI. While most utilities understand SCADA
systems and their security requirements, they were not yet
thinking about the implications to an AMI system when/if
starting to use it as a SCADA Lite system.
“One thing that is really agreed upon in the industry is
that the cost of water is going to go up exponentially in the
future,” he says. “If that happens, the issue of a 20% to 30%
system loss is no longer going to be an issue where you shrug
and say, ‘Oh, well.’”
As customers see their water cost spike, he adds, the
potential for water theft will increase, and security will become
a bigger priority. “Analytics and really strong data tools will be
required in the water space,” says Sala.
ADVICE ON SUCCESSFUL USE
The managers from Detroit and Boston are bullish on AMI
in general but offer insight into successful implementation.
“First off, I would tell everybody to do a fixed-network sys-
tem,” says Johnson. “The advantages are so much greater over
a drive-by system. Also, do your homework. Once you settle
on one system that you think will do a good job for you, trust
that manufacturer. Building in more redundancy increases the
cost, but they’ve done this so many times that they know what
to do.”
Adds Aigen: “Keep control of your system, because it’s
always your system—I’m talking about installation. Don’t let
anybody else control it, because once you let it get out of con-
trol, it’s very difficult to get back.”
Porter focuses on ensuring the accuracy of consumption
data. “Remember the expression GIGO—garbage in, garbage
out?” he asks. “It’s all about the data; it’s all about quality
control; it’s all about making sure that the data you’re collect-
ing is correct. That was my biggest challenge: to make sure
that, during installation, they were at the right address. You
can do whatever you want with the data, but it has to be taken
accurately.”
But Medico cautions small utilities about implementing
AMI without sufficient data-analysis resources. “You definitely
need people and the resources to analyze the data to do this.
If you don’t have that, you’re wasting the system. If that’s the
case—you don’t have the resources—then get a drive-by sys-
tem and take readings once a month.” WE
Don Talend is a frequent contributor specializing in technology
and innovation.
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