Water Connections: Building a Smart Water System

Located at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers, Paducah is a popular river town in western Kentucky. Its municipal water utility, Paducah Water, works diligently to serve its approximately 27,000 water customers, ensuring the reliability, safety and quality of this historic and creative city’s water supply.

Five years ago, Paducah Water identified a need to upgrade its water system. The utility used a manual reading system for decades and investigated multiple solutions, including touch-read and drive-by systems. None of the solutions met its requirements.

“In both of our attempts to deploy new solutions, we found the equipment and systems to be unreliable. We even had to stop our implementation efforts after having installed 1,000 new water meters,” said Bill Robertson, general manager of Paducah Water. “We had to keep looking.”

In 2014, Robertson and his team learned of Badger Meter’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solutions, specifically the BEACON® AMA (Advanced Metering Analytics) managed solution with ORION® Cellular endpoints. Paducah Water began piloting the solution right away, becoming one of the first utilities in the country to implement what at the time was brand new technology. “We were impressed and quickly ordered and installed additional units. The cellular endpoints were easy to set up and were reliable,” Robertson added.

Over the next couple of years, Paducah Water’s team members visited other utilities in Kentucky and Arkansas that had fully deployed Badger Meter’s BEACON AMA solution and ORION Cellular endpoints. During discussions with the other utilities’ employees, Paducah Water’s team heard high praise for Badger Meter’s solutions.

“In addition to the pilot, these independent references helped to show the Paducah Water team the benefits that Badger Meter can provide for a wide variety of demanding utility needs,” said Kim Swinford, account manager at Badger Meter.

Beyond the dated meter reading technology, Paducah Water had been using older water meters that needed replacing. To improve efficiencies and reliability across its entire water system, the utility needed to analyze and understand every aspect of the system, including the water meter.

“We started to evaluate costs and benefits of deploying new technology and water meters after hearing the results from utilities across the region,” said Robertson. “During the winter of 2016–17, we tested more than 2,000 of our meters, ranging in size from 5/8 in. to 2 in., to determine the efficiency of our existing meters, which had come from another water meter manufacturer. We used this information to estimate additional revenue that would result from deploying new meters and technology.”

While budgetary restrictions limited a full system deployment for the water utility, the flexibility of the cellular solution allowed them to deploy at a pace that worked for them. First, the team installed 600 new ORION Cellular endpoints on existing residential meters in select locations around the city. The following year — fiscal year 2017–18 — the utility team budgeted to replace its commercial meters (1-1/2 in. and larger meters). Based on its experience with Badger Meter, the Paducah Water team researched and ultimately selected Badger Meter’s E-Series® Ultrasonic meters at the 1-1/2 in. and 2 in. sizes for the replacements, especially noting the meters’ accuracy and extended flow range.

The utility team installed the new E-Series Ultrasonic meters and set up the ORION Cellular endpoints during winter 2017.

“For the first six months of data — from April to September 2018 — we are already seeing an increase in revenue of 9.6% for the 1-1/2-inch meters and a startling 20.3 percent for our 2-inch meters,” said Robertson. “If increased revenues continue at this rate, we will be able to use the additional revenue to pay for replacements of our larger 3-, 4- and 6-inch meters in less than two years.” WW

Badger Meter is exhibiting at WEFTEC.19, booth 1920. To learn more, visit www.badgermeter.com.