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Meeting Date:	05/29/2018
Automated Meters Purchase Request for Proposals
Submitted for:	Adrian Montemayor	Submitted By:	Adrian Montemayor
Department:	Water Utilities

Subject:

Discussion and possible action to authorize the Purchasing Agent to solicit request for proposals for the acquisition of automatic reading water meters described as Automated Meter Infrastructure (AMI) for the Utilities Department. The equipment includes the meter, cellular registers, communication software, and customer access applications. This new technology will provide for more accurate consumption reading, customer feedback portal via an application for monitoring real-time consumption and leak information; and security technology to identify water theft, meter tampering, and prohibited access of meters. The project is estimated to cost $450,000 for replacement of all current metering and is to be funded by 2016 Bond proceeds under 7220-7280-001-474501.

Issue: Currently the Utilities Department utilizes existing maintenance workers and operators to provide the manual reading of all 1900 meters within the communities of Rio Bravo and El Cenizo. This operation requires up to 432 man hours to complete the process of reading meters, keypunching results, and re-reading meters with errors. In addition, hazardous conditions exist out in the field with our personnel that leads to an injury involving dog bites, insect bites, and physical injury due to holes in the ground. We also have a significant level of water loss and therefore revenue loss associated with meter tampering and illegal connections to our system.

Solution: The newest technology in remote meter reading involves cellular service meters that can provide immediate results of consumption, water leaks, illegal water consumption, and provide feedback to the customer of exactly when and how much water is used by the hour for moderating their water use.

Result: Automated water consumption directly inputs into the accounting system limited to read and keypunch errors, providing for a safer process for employees and accurate confidence of metered consumption with our customers.

Background:

The Utilities Department has piloted 25 meters with the Company of National Meter and Automation using Badger Meter, Model M25 Positive Displacement Meter with ORION Cellular Water Endpoints and BEACON AMA software for monitoring consumption.

These 25 meters were installed in the most remote locations and operated for 4 months. Results were excellent in terms of the communication and accuracy in relation to existing manual consumption metering.

Specifications will require the bidding of the meters piloted under this program.

Previous Court Action:

5/22/2017: Discussion and possible action to approve a pilot project to National Meter and Automation, Inc. in an amount of $8,581.00 for implementation and evaluation of a automated water meter reading project to include Twenty Five (25) cellular meters reading for Rio Bravo and El Cenizo. [Account #7220-7280-001-474501 (Construction in progress)]

Fiscal Impact

Budget Account Number:	NA
Funding Source:	NA
Balance:	NA
Financial Impact:
Not Applicable