• California-based utility chooses Itron advanced technology for its ability to empower customers, protect resources
LIBERTY LAKE, WA, July 29, 2009 -- Itron Inc. announced today that it has signed a contract with Glendale Water and Power (Glendale) to provide the California-based utility with advanced metering technologies for its electric and water operations.
Serving a combined 120,000 customers, Glendale sought an integrated system -- from the meter to customer portal -- from a single vendor that would help reduce its overall risk in deploying an advanced metering system.
Itron's solution for Glendale consists of OpenWay® electricity meters, Water SaveSource™ endpoints and Itron Enterprise Edition™ (IEE) Meter Data Management (MDM) software.
"Glendale Water and Power is committed to delivering sustainable power and water services to our customers in a reliable and environmentally-sensitive manner. Itron's advanced metering technologies align well with our vision," says Glenn Steiger, Glendale Water and Power general manager. "OpenWay and Water SaveSource will enable more efficient delivery of our resources and give our customers the information they need to be smarter about their consumption. Itron's level of experience and support gave us the confidence to move ahead with this project."
OpenWay exemplifies advanced metering by providing a two-way communication network between the utility and each meter. OpenWay provides interval data collection, time-of-use metering, load-limiting remote disconnect and reconnect, outage detection, net metering capability and ZigBee® home area network connectivity -- all working in concert to empower customers to participate in energy management, conservation and distributed generation.
Water SaveSource offers advanced data logging capabilities that support conservation efforts by influencing customer consumption behavior and managing compliance of mandated measures. Its leak sensor technology reduces non-revenue water losses and associated production costs with proactive leak detection capabilities of the entire distribution system.
IEE MDM will be used to create a single repository for both OpenWay and Water SaveSource meter data collection and data management going forward. This will reduce the cost and time to gather and reconcile meter data from multiple collection systems, while streamlining IT infrastructure and improving data security. IEE Customer Care will be utilized to display data as part of Glendale's website, providing its electric and water end users with insight into their usage patterns and the opportunity to change their behavior.
"Glendale Water and Power's choice to utilize both OpenWay and Water SaveSource reflects their commitment to more efficient and effective management of their electricity and water resources, thereby ensuring its sustainability," said Lou Gust, vice president of water sales and marketing for Itron. "Glendale is setting precedent for municipalities by simultaneously deploying smart metering for its electric and water services and Itron is very excited to work alongside them in ensuring success in this first-of-its-kind deployment."
Itron Inc. is a leading provider of intelligent metering, data collection and utility software solutions.
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