Preparing for the Move to AMI

Whether it’s customer backlash, installation mistakes, faulty equipment, or administration issues, launching an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) program can test the stamina of even the most stalwart of water utilities. Worse yet, these problems quickly find their way to the news media. For example, in April 2015, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) faced heat from Pittsburgh City Council members and angry customers over billing issues resulting from the rollout of 80,000 new meter interface units.

It had to be an uncomfortable situation for Jim Good, the agency’s interim executive director. The PWSA found that roughly 2,000 units were incompatible with the existing water meters. But the problems didn’t stop there. The authority had to admit that another 4,000 were plagued with problems including faulty installation, wireless signal failures, and more.

Overall, it’s been a disastrous affair with customers and the media, but the PWSA is not the only utility to suffer such problems. For years, similar events have made headlines across the US. Why? Well, it may sound glib, but we could sum it up with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” But how can a utility prepare? Actually, there is plenty of knowledge on this subject, and plenty of industry experts willing to share their wisdom. Let’s talk to some of them, and learn the steps for avoiding the pitfalls experienced by PWSA and others.

To start, take a look at how you’ll engage your team, advises Kim Foster at Ferguson Waterworks Meter and Neptune Technology Group, Schofield, WI. Foster has been with the company since 2006 and is responsible for developing, managing, and promoting Ferguson Waterworks meter and automation business. An initial step for engagement is to include all of the utility’s key departments in setting clear goals. “I’ve been doing this for almost 25 years and I’ve seen that the more engaged the utility is, the more successful the project is. That’s one of the components that people forget about and that’s where the lack of preparation on the utility side really shows.”

Foster notes that the most successful programs develop and communicate a plan based on a team mentality. And that team isn’t limited to the utility’s employees. “It’s no longer just the water department,” says Foster. “It’s the entire city, because it will affect every aspect. Such as council members that have constituents.”

The constituents of Bay City, MI, overwhelmed their city’s officials with complaints last January, when customer backlash stalled the rollout of the city’s new AMI system. According to Greg Johnson, Bay City’s consultant for the smart meter program, residents started refusing entry to installation crews when the media reported complaints related to billing—plus, old pipes and valves were breaking inside homes during installations. The backlash resulted in delays, and that motivated the company contracted to carry out the installation to withdraw its services at the end of its contract.

Foster has found that it’s not unusual for a utility to rely on engineering consultants, especially during the request for proposal development phase, and he advises administrators to vet consultants carefully. “A utility should know whether AMI projects are part of the consultant’s normal business process. I’ve had a lot of dialogue with engineers, and utilities have very specific agendas. So the engineer has to make sure they understand how it works and the different products available in the marketplace.”

Understanding the installation phase is equally important. We mentioned that the PWSA project had installation problems, and Foster explains that having a properly trained staff is critical. “Don’t use temporary laborers. In Ferguson’s case, our people go through very regimented training programs. The guys on the street are meeting customers and they have to be educated. When we finish with an installation, we give the customer materials and handouts so they have information about the product, and if they have more questions they can go to our website. It’s a full circle approach, because I’ve been to meetings where customers were afraid of RF [radio frequency] and issues about their health. Even though it’s a misconception, it’s important to them.”

Concerns about RF risks constitute the majority of complaints from the public, according to Angela Zapp, director of service business at Neptune Technology Group (Canada) Ltd. in Toronto, Canada. “Two common concerns are RF health risks, and issues related to the privacy of the data being transmitted across the network and who has access to it,” says Zapp. “The general public has similar issues with AMI technology in any utility sector, but these concerns are misconceptions. Radio frequencies in the AMI industry are much less powerful than other RF devices, such as Wi-Fi routers and cell phones, which emit RF signals with a significantly higher output power.”

Although many studies have debunked the misconception of RF risks from AMI, it’s still critical to have a public information program. “If customers aren’t informed, then things can escalate unnecessarily, so it’s important to have a communication program set up ahead of time, with plans in place to mitigate project deployment risks,” says Zapp. “There are many things the utility should consider, and one important area is either providing customers with options or clearly outlining the mandatory requirements supported with a bylaw or others means to enforce participation. Some utilities choose to simply mandate the RF device in every home to ensure that the utility receives the full benefits of the AMI deployment. Other utilities offer options for refusing the AMI device, such as keeping the old technology, but at a higher cost. You should determine the options ahead of time and effectively communicate them.”

The stages of effective communication include internal communications to municipal entities, such as the mayor, council members, and administration board members, so they understand the goals and benefits to the public and the utility. Many cities have a 311 number. Make sure that the 311 staff has the information they need to answer questions and prevent them from escalating.

“The utility needs to ensure that the plan is coordinated with the installation vendor,” adds Zapp. “They need to know who the prime contact is for the project. Managing the deployment phase requires a detailed chart of those responsible for fielding customer calls, which includes a schedule that shows what work is being done and when it’s scheduled, so the utility’s customers are prepared for the new installation. The installers should also be trained to review the procedure, the location of the new devices, and how they operate with the end customer before they start the installation. Effectively communicating at the time of the installation helps minimize issues and complaints.”

These steps are especially important when utilities are installing meters in homes that weren’t previously metered. For a project that Zapp manages in Toronto, Canada, of the 470,000 homes, 70,000 didn’t have meters. “You do get a higher level of resistance and uncertainty from end customers that have never had a water meter, but in our case, we increased our public education program, and focused on the long-term benefits, such as the environmental concern, and the economic equity issue. You might have a widow at home alone, next door to a family of six, and they are both paying the same rate for water. Also, there’s a significant portion of the population that benefits from the meters because they conserve water, which is a benefit to the utility as well as the end customer.”

Another tool of effective communication is highlighting the benefits to the customer rather than the benefits to the utility. Customer information materials should focus on improved billing accuracy, increased efficiency of handling inquiries, leak detection, and access to payments and information about utility bills through the Internet.

Leverage
By taking these steps, a utility can inform and prepare their customers for the many benefits of an AMI system, but according to Tim Schwartz, Master Meter, Mansfield, TX, the same philosophy should apply to the utility’s workforce when it comes to leveraging the high volume of meter data. “The biggest issue for utilities is that they don’t think through how to leverage the data,” says Schwartz. “They initiate the first step of connecting to a billing system, but we are finding that by far the vast majority of utilities are not prepared for the other benefits, and that includes being able to leverage the analytics. So we see utilities coming in and purchasing an AMI system, but they’re not using much of it.”

If the utility was prepared, it could be leveraging infrastructure resources that a “smart city” would access and provide analytics for, such as the electric and gas utilities, plus emergency providers such as hospitals, and transportation systems such as airlines and public transit. The data from a water utility’s AMI system fits well with the growing trend of the Internet of Things (see sidebar on pg. 38). Says Schwartz, “For example, let’s say that you implemented your AMI system with meter data monitoring, and there’s a mainline break. The systemwould detect it within five minutes, and if the mainline was connected to a local hospital or school they could be alerted, and the data analyzed. So there are a lot of uses for the data.”

Leak detection and non-revenue losses are also positive selling points for AMI, yet again, many utilities aren’t prepared to reap the benefits. “When you first commit to an AMI system you’re going to discover leaks and possibly theft and tampering issues, and there is usually a large upfront operational demand,” says Schwartz. “The director or general manager has to be prepared for the non-revenue water issue and take care of the low hanging fruit first. It helps to have a software system that can create custom widgets very quickly, so if you highlight a certain group of users—such as agricultural or brewery or industrial—with a widget, they’re tracked, and appear right on the dashboard. Our system makes it very easy to trend customers, and we also offer a customer portal so they can log in and check their usage every day with data that is never more than 12 hours old.”

The widget-based format also can connect to other departments and other sources of data, so utilities can overlay consumption data with climate or census information from the government.

The savings from recovering non-revenue water can be staggering. “I was with a utility last week and they told me that they estimated a non-revenue water loss of 40%,” recalls Schwartz, “and 13% of that came from two different accounts. Yet, one of them was actually an inactive account that supposedly wasn’t being used. So by implementing this AMI system, they found an inactive industrial complex that was using a massive amount of water.”

Technology
We’ve seen some examples of large-scale implementations with hundreds of thousands of meters, but advances in AMI technology are allowing for much smaller pilot programs that can help a utility get actual experience as part of the preparation process. For example, the BEACON AMA system from Badger Meter, Milwaukee, WI, offers an immediate solution that works with cellular endpoints, plus an easy-to-use hosted software product that delivers fast, near real-time data.

A hosted network with managed solutions allows a utility to focus on managing its operations. The technology of cellular endpoints doesn’t require the infrastructure of a fixed network, and it provides the option for small deployments at any point in time. So a utility could put in as little as 10 or less for a pilot program, and these accounts could be located anywhere in the utility’s customer base. Moreover, cell phone technology helps sidestep the public’s fears about RF. “A cell phone is not something foreign,” says Kristie Anderson, product marketing manager at Badger Meter. “And cellular requires no infrastructure, so the utility can get their hands on a system and install them anywhere in the city. You don’t need to cluster many of them to take advantage of a tower. They could do something with their 10 largest commercial customers, or mix and match customers and industrial accounts with a trial program that allows them to get prepared for a larger rollout.”

As for the overwhelming data from AMI technology, Badger has addressed that, too. “I think it used to be that there was so much data and people didn’t know what to do with it or even how to manage it,” says Anderson. “But new software makes it much easier to manage that information, so utilities can see trends and patterns and anomalies and set up dashboards with alerts. The software has become much more intuitive and easier for people to understand how to leverage it.”

The option of having the Beacon system hosted on Badger’s cloud network was a major selling point for Nick Schiavo, City of Santa Fe public utilities director. “The cloud service was a big factor,” says Schiavo. “We don’t want to be responsible for maintaining servers, so that’s money well spent and we had no pushback from our IT department. Santa Fe has a user base of about 80,000 people, and we just started putting in the Badger AMI system. We have about 3,000 installed already and I think it’s fairly well received. We’ve had a couple of news articles about it and people are interested in it, in part because they do pay a premium for water, and this is the high desert in the Southwest. It’s a scarce resource and we want to make sure we take care of it. This system allows us to monitor the usage from our offices and also the customer will have that ability, so if there is a leak we should know within 48 hours.”

Santa Fe’s old system required the utility to manually read meters once a month, and if a residence developed a leak a day after their meter reading, the customer might not know for 40 days. “Our rates are $6.06 per thousand gallons,” says Schiavo. “It’s one of the highest in the country, and that’s for the first 10,000 gallons at the Tier 1 level. The Tier 2 level rises to 21.72 cents per thousand, and that has really motivated conservation. So the conservation works well, but what doesn’t work well is when you have a leak of 30,000 gallons and you receive a bill for $1,500 to $2,500.”

The cellular based system was another factor in Santa Fe’s decision to use BEACON. “Our town is fairly sensitive to towers and has hilly terrain,” says Schiavo. “We interviewed several companies and to do a 400 MHz frequency system they needed three new antennas on towers. We chose to skip that and went with the Badger system with existing cellular towers.”

Water is also a scarce resource in Fountain Valley, CA. Along with other utilities throughout the state, Fountain Valley is under strict mandates to slash water usage. Since 2013, the city’s businesses and residents have reduced consumption by 29%, with efforts that include restrictions, conservation rebates, and turf removal. But that’s not enough, so Fountain Valley turned to an AMI system from Sensus, Raleigh, NC, to monitor drought conservation regulations, and ultimately meet a citywide goal of a 20% drop in water use.

The Sensus smart water network includes the FlexNet communication system, plus iPERL residential and OMNI commercial meters. FlexNet relies on a long-range, scalable radio network. The OMNI commercial meters offer sustained precision over time, and iPERL water meters capture the lowest flows accurately for their 20-year lifetime.

Even with the conservation urgency, and the technology’s impressive performance, achieving a high “buy-in” from the utility’s stakeholders was the first goal for Mark Sprague, utilities manager for the City of Fountain Valley. Sprague notes that moving to the Sensus AMI system was a major change in technology and practices, so providing information to the stakeholders was one of the utility’s first steps. “It’s a leap in the right direction, but there can still be concerns about the investment and ROI. Our highest priority was getting buy-in from all stakeholders and showcasing how beneficial the technology is.”

One of those benefits is leak detection. Before deploying Sensus technology, it was difficult to determine water losses from leaks in the system. “Today,” says Sprague, “we know almost immediately when water is being lost and can quickly make repairs.”

To prepare the public, Fountain Valley gave two public study sessions. The first was about AMI, and the second was about the utility’s research findings—plus, a cost-benefit analysis, and the benefits AMI provides the city and its customers. Most all feedback was positive and good validation for the project.

Additionally, the utility used an AMI implementation communications toolkit provided by Sensus. Other efforts included publishing an AMI informational brochure, advanced notification postcards, bill inserts, AMI information, and FAQs on the city website. Also, the media received a press release about the project, and informational slides made for TV, and the public had access to a designated phone line for answers to project questions.

All told, Sprague reports that the implementation of an AMI system has been a great success, thanks in large part to diligent efforts to prepare all of the utility’s stakeholders. In fact, cities such as Fountain Valley, Santa Fe, Toronto, and many others, are proving thatpreparation is the key to upgrading to an AMI system that benefits both the public and the water utility. Moreover, through lessons learned in the field, the industry has developed a wealth of knowledge and wisdom for utilities that are ready to discover the benefits of AMI.