Water Efficiency May 2012 : Page 17
MEASURE MORE. Discover how Master Meter is making every drop of water measure up with our Octave ™ Water Management System. MUELLER WATER SYSTEMS New AMI allows for two-way communications. information. If you’re only tracking tens of gallons of change or less in your reg-ister, then getting hourly data is useless in terms of being able to assess micro changes. A tenth-gallon resolution is critical for AMI.” Neptune focuses on ensuring the utility has the ability to support collec-tor technology with its current resources and organization. For example, some AMI solutions require the actual collec-tors to be mounted at the same height as the antennae, “which means a simple trouble-shooting event can turn into a major orchestrated activity,” he says. Hassan Ali, vice president and general manager of Mueller Systems, says that the basic capabilities available now through AMI allows municipalities to use a full two-way network to collect meter data readings to collect any im-portant alerts available in the distribu-tion system, including leak detection inside the premise and backfl ow alarms, and allows municipalities to share information with users. Th e technology driving that is Mi.Net, which stands for Mueller Infrastructure Network. It’s a two-way AMI system that pro-vides utilities with on-demand reads in seconds, outage detection and restora-tion, and tamper and leak notifi cation, among other benefi ts. Advanced monitoring capabilities are designed to help utilities improve operational effi ciency, customer service, and conservation, while reducing labor and operational costs. “Th rough two-way capabilities, customer service representatives can instantly read the meter if someone is complaining about the bill,” says Ali. “Th ey can share the hourly profi le of the meter usage with the consumer so they can believe that the bill is correct.” If there is a suspected leak, “They can look at the alarms that might be there for that meter while that cus-tomer is on the phone, and, within a few seconds, they can have all of this information,” he says. “It also allows them to change the configuration of the meter remotely.” Additionally, with leak alarms, “you may suspect a slow leak, and you can’t see it in the data, so you can reconfi gure ENTER TO WIN! Visit MasterMeterPromo.com and enter to win an iPad with the code below: Promo Code: WE0312B1 No Purchase Necessary. Only one entry per person. MAY 2012 WATER EFFICIENCY 17