The Douglasville-Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority (the Authority) has signed a contract to deploy smart water metering technology as it upgrades aging infrastructure and adds new service to meet the needs of a growing population. Based outside Atlanta, Georgia, the authority provides water service to over 42,000 residential and commercial accounts.
Built upon Itron’s ChoiceConnect™ advanced metering platform, the authority is implementing a hybrid collection approach to read meters across its service territory, which is spread out over 200 square miles. This hybrid approach offers the authority the most cost-effective solution for reading metering data.
The system will use Itron’s fixed network technology for the majority of its data collection activities with the balance of its accounts being read with mobile solutions. Software to manage data and streamline interactions with customers is also included to better facilitate move-in/move-out readings and mitigate billing disputes. It will also help detect leaks, improve customer service and provide consumers with individualized data about their consumption.
“The extreme drought we experienced in Douglas County in 2007 brought a new awareness to our customers, who want to know more about how much they are using,” said Lori Camp, AMR/AMI Project Manager for the authority. “We sought an end-to-end solution that would allow us to respond proactively, instead of reactively, to customer problems and leaks, but also allows for system growth which will give us the ability to monitor distribution system usage as well as system leaks.”
Advanced two-way communication capabilities between the meter and utility will allow the authority to collect time-synchronized meter data in increments as frequent as every hour. Customer service representatives can access this information in near real-time for greater visibility when responding to billing inquiries. Granular collection and analysis of consumption data helps to paint a clear picture of usage patterns to better balance supply with demand, and can be analyzed to indicate possible leaks at a customer premise.
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