Click here to enlarge image“Lawrenceville has always tried to proactively plan for future growth and expansion,” said Bill Gaguski, IS Director for the City of Lawrenceville. “We believe an integrated AMR system will help our group be more productive. In addition to greatly reducing our meter reading costs, an AMR system will help us improve our reading accuracy; decrease the number of re-reads and resolve any customer usage issues.”
Finding and implementing the right AMR system fell to Gaguski. The goal was to find a system capable of delivering 100 percent of the water, gas and electric meter readings each month while using less manpower.
In addition, the new AMR system would have to be cost effective, scalable, easy to install, and work with a multitude of different meters spread across three different utilities. They also wanted a system that would provide rich data and allow the city to find leaks and other issues before they became major problems.
Also, the city wanted to leverage the benefits of usage profiling/datalogging technology. Of particular importance was the ability to analyze daily consumption, especially during peak hours.
The city would also need a vendor willing to manage the installation of more than 50,000 meters throughout its service territory. The installation would involve a mixture of interfacing methods to retrofit the city’s existing meters and minimize meter replacement.
After evaluating several technologies, the city’s review committee selected the system from Datamatic, Ltd. (www.datamatic.com) for its second testing phase, a pilot program.
The 90-day pilot consisted of the deployment of 500 gas, 125 electric and 125 water Firefly Meter Interface Units (MIUs) installed in areas considered difficult to read.
The pilot was successful and the city contracted with Datamatic for a system-wide Firefly deployment to be completed over the next three years. For Lawrenceville, this would include more than 50,000 MIUs for water, gas and electric meters, mobile (vehicle-based) and handheld reading platforms and a comprehensive software suite. The completed system will give Lawrenceville the ability to gather simultaneous water, gas and electric readings with a single vehicle and provide detailed usage profiles on every commercial and residential account.
“We chose Firefly based on its ability to connect to our existing meters in all three utilities and for its ability to collect interval data on every account,” Gaguski said.