By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Nephi will participate with Mona, Levan and Levan Irrigation Company in an automated meter reading.
“The start-up cost will be approximately $175,000 for the four entities,” said Randy McKnight, city administrator.
Each of the four will pay an equal share of the start-up fee, he said.
The difference to the communities and the irrigation company will be that each will purchase their own meters according to the plan selected by that group.
It was determined by the council to authorize Mayor Mark Jones to sign the agreement which will be binding on the city if all the other entities which are party to it sign the agreement.
Automatic meter reading, or AMR, is the technology of automatically collecting data from water meter or energy metering devices (water, gas, electric) and transferring that data to a central database for billing and/or analyzing.
This means that billing can be based on actual consumption rather than on an estimate based on previous consumption, giving customers better control of their use of electric energy, gas usage, or water consumption.
AMR technologies include hand-held, mobile and network technologies based on telephony platforms (wired and wireless), radio frequency (RF), or powerline transmission.
“Advanced Metering systems can provide benefits for utilities, retail providers and customers,” said McKnight.
Benefits will be recognized by the utilities with increased efficiencies, outage detection, tamper notification and reduced labor cost as a result of automating reads, connections and disconnects.
“With the meter data being readily available, more flexible billing cycles will be available to customers,” said McKnight.
Instead of following the standard utility read cycles, with timely usage information available to the customer, benefits will be seen through opportunities to manage energy consumption and change from one REP to another with actual meter data.
The system will be part of a communications tower which is already in place in Juab County.
It will be a Fixed Network AMR, a method where a network is permanently installed to capture meter readings.
This method can consist of a series of antennas, towers, collectors, repeaters, or other permanently installed infrastructure to collect transmissions of meter readings from AMR capable meters and get the data to a central computer without a person in the field to collect it.
Using wireless radio transmitters, AMR remotely reads customer meters and then transfers the data into the billing system.
AMR allows collection of consumption data for the purposes of real-time billing and consumption analysis. At any given time, the AMR system gathers real-time data and transfers the information gathered to the central database through networking technology.
McKnight said that the primary benefit of the technology is more accurate and precise measurement of water, electricity and gas consumption.
Consumers will be billed the amount that exactly corresponds to what they have consumed.
On the other hand, the city will have more efficient operations. Less manpower and resources are needed in meter reading and data gathering; they only need to access the main database to get the information that they need for billing and analysis.
“All meters of the gas, electric and water systems, will need to have the capability of being read by the meter interface,” said McKnight.
After that, this same interface has to translate the data into digital information to facilitate transmission. There must also be a code added to the meter data reading so that the data can be attributed to the correct subscriber.
An AMR system has a meter interface apparatus. This is generally an integrated component containing power supply, sensors, and control electronics and communications programming.
The meter interface module translates data gathered from the movement of mechanical dials into digital data as well as properly identifying data for the purposes of correct billing.
The central office must have the software and hardware for transmitted meter data reception, allocation, analysis and automatic billing.
The utility saves money by increased speed of reading, has lower liability from entering private property and has less chance of missing reads because of being locked out from meter access.
