The St. Lucie, Florida West Services District is actively deploying Kamstrup flowIQ 2200 meters.
The St. Lucie West Services District was established in 1990 by the Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission. It’s a 4,600-acre community development district that provides safe drinking water to the residents and businesses in its area.
The newly deployed Kamstrup meters utilize ultrasonic technology with acoustic leak detection to identify leaks in the distribution system. This meter provides water utilities the ability to receive insights like understanding usage trends, peak demand periods and customer behavior.
“Prior to deploying Kamstrup metrology, we had residents experiencing incorrect water bills at 90,000 - 100,000 gallons per month,” said Joshua Miller, utilities director at St. Lucie West Services District, in a press release. “That level of bad meter reading and inaccurate water bills was not acceptable.”
The release also states that the utility was experiencing meter failure of around 10-percent with their prior meter vendor. To find the correct meter for the job, St. Lucie conducted a 15-month study on smart meters across multiple different manufacturers. St. Lucie hopes they’ve found the right metering technology for long term use.
“The first question I ask any manufacturer is what their meter fail rate is,” said Miller in the release. “I can tell you that with Kamstrup’s ultrasonic meters, we’ve had a zero percent fail rate. Their quality is so good, Kamstrup doesn’t need a meter replacement program.”
“We’re delighted to provide St. Lucie a quality water metering and AMI solution that truly helps them capture more revenue and deliver accurate billing to its residents,” said Bruce Bharat, vice president and country manager at Kamstrup North America, in the press release. “Manufacturing innovative, high-quality, and reliable meters is something we take seriously at Kamstrup. Our expanded manufacturing facility in Georgia is truly state-of-the-art and the best in the industry.”
Miller concluded in the press release that the Kamstrup meter is a win-win for St. Lucie as it allows the utility to pick up on accounted water loss, as well as achieving outstanding read rates across their water meters.
