Everything you need to preserve water and protect the bottom line

Rural and urban utilities, regardless of size or location, are united in a common battle on two major fronts — to preserve the water they already have and to protect their utility’s bottom line. Leading that charge, Master Meter is aiding the cause of these utilities, helping them develop successful game plans to curb loss and secure revenue with new utility-driven, technological innovations.

Master Meter’s development of applied technologies uniquely addresses how utilities measure, collect, and manage their field information. Empowered utilities can now take a strategic, tactical approach to identify and prioritize their responses to the constant threats to their bottom line — including water loss from leaking, aging infrastructure, theft, meter tamper, and inoperative or inaccurate meters.

Utilities can now move beyond mere ‘data collection’ and move into the realm of aggregating true, actionable intelligence. Intel derived from the metered endpoint through sophisticated, high resolution metering technology, now provides new and unique insights into user behavior, usage trends, and meter performance. 

OCTAVE™

While the latest exciting data collection technologies have garnered much of the recent industry praise, Master Meter has not abandoned the continual improvement and development of new metering techniques and technologies. Ultimately, the value chain begins at the meter – its long-term accuracy and continuing ability to capture water flow, whether a torrent or a small droplet. The Octave™ utilizes a precise, ultrasonic measurement technology, with no moving parts, to deliver greater accuracy, more revenue, and enhanced accountability for water preservation. Octave provides new levels of data sharing so utilities can make informed decisions and leverage the meter’s inherent benefit of sustained accuracy on higher volume connections.

The positive displacement meter, a longtime industry measurement stalwart, was recently given a complete redesign by Master Meter engineers employing the same technology used by NASA – Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software. Why? Because this technology yields millions of simultaneous calculations to precisely guide design characteristics across multiple benchmarks without sacrifice to any one parameter. Hence, Master Meter’s new line of PD meters provide greater accuracy, optimal ongoing revenue, extremely quiet function, and keep long term operating costs to a minimum because of reduced pressure drop.

Creating smarter, more actionable data alone is not enough to help direct the utility – we must find new and innovative means of capturing, communicating and disseminating this information with all stakeholders – including the utility customers.

AIRLINX™ DRONE

While fixed network metering systems dominate water cooler conversation, Master Meter looked to the untethered skies to answer the question, “Can we get fixed network performance without the burdensome infrastructure requirements?” In conjunction with rural utilities, servicing sparsely populated areas, a solution was born utilizing battle-hardened, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV drone) technology coupled with advanced meter data collection electronics on board. Extremely sophisticated, inherently eco-friendly, compact in size and elegant in function, our AirLinx™ Data Collection System flies over a utility’s coverage area, completely self-guided by GPS, while collecting consumption information and monition for leak, theft, tamper and zero consumption (stuck meter or vacated service) alarms. AirLinx can be flown daily for an enhanced meter intelligence experience.

Preserving water is the real goal. Water is a finite resource. Supply can be increased through reaching out further or digging deeper, but water comes at a continuingly escalating cost. Technologies entering the market now help utilities act on Benjamin Franklin’s logic of “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Likewise, a drop of water saved is a drop of water produced and the key to promoting water preservation begins with accurate accounting of its journey from source to end user. One can subscribe to a prevailing logic in areas where water is abundant, that conservation is unnecessary. But this logic is faulty, and does not account for the cost of treatment-related chemicals and the high cost of electricity to process and deliver the goods. In fact, last year water utilities in the United States used 56 million kWH on water-related activities, such as pumping and treatment operations.

We can improve the preservation of water by improving the means by which we measure it, account for it, and track it. Master Meter has excelled in developing the technologies and applications required to do just that — not just on the utility side, but by empowering the user, the homeowner, the small business, the factory, or the irrigation person to understand their own consumption behavior. Educating end-users on consumption is one of the leading ways to modify their behavior, aid in conservation efforts and minimize billing disputes.

MASTERLINX™

People – rate payers – inherently want to do the right thing with respect to using water wisely, but without the right tools, and without the detailed sharing of consumption use by the utility with their end users, it is difficult for people to make informed decisions on how and when they use water. Intuitive management software makes actionable sense of the field meter intel, and aids in sharing it with the end user. This is a critical final step for utilities searching for better water preservation and, ultimately, revenue protection.

MasterLinx™ Meter Data Management (MDM) software helps the utility by structuring a ‘dashboard’ with alarms notifying, by sector or zone, when water delivered into a specific area exceeds, by a predetermined percentage, the water metered in the area (i.e. water loss). Moreover, it empowers the end user – customers can receive leak notifications to their smart phone, PDA, or email inbox. Imagine receiving a courtesy notice that a hose bib or toilet tank might be leaking, and a reminder to take action and check all water connections in the home. A homeowner, away on vacation, could ask a trusted neighbor to take action on their behalf and avoid any end-of-the-month billing surprises.

Successful water preservation lies in stopping the many infrastructural leaks occurring where pipes join together, or with a valve, fire hydrant or other potential spot for leakage. Every Master Meter 3G metered end-point incorporates sync-read technology, using a ‘real time clock’ chipset that allows utilities to understand, during any time period, citywide, or by zone, water produced and actual water delivered, metered and billed. This helps pinpoint infrastructure trouble spots suffering from systemic leak issues, or water theft, or possible meter populations that have become inaccurate and so are no longer generating peak revenues and promoting user accountability.

SUMMARY

Master Meter leads utilities on two fronts in their ongoing battle of water preservation and revenue protection through improved intel at the measurement, collection and data management levels.