The town of Culpeper, Va., has chosen Aclara to provide a total advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) solution for electric and water meters. Aclara is part of the Utility Solutions Group of ESCO Technologies Inc.
The town's new AMI system will deliver remote meter reading to 5,000 electric and 6,400 water customers. It will employ Aclara’s TWACS power-line technology for reading electric meters as well as its STAR Network system for water meters.
In addition, Aclara will supply enterprise meter-data-management (MDM) and consumer-engagement solutions. A web portal will provide access directly to usage data, allowing the town to better service its customers.
The town also will employ Aclara solutions to manage and restore services after power outages, control usage during peak electric demand and implement acoustic leak detection to find water losses in the distribution system.
“Access to near real-time information will help us understand events on our utility networks and to be proactive in our response to outages, tampering, theft and leaks,” said Culpeper Director of Light and Power Mike Stover. “For example, the ability to identify the extent of power outages without sending personnel to the field will exponentially improve our ability to restore services quickly.”
Stover said that Culpeper’s decision to deploy Aclara solutions was based in part on references from local utilities also using Aclara systems. He added that the water and electric utilities worked together to develop an optimum AMI system that met the needs of an expanding water service area as well as a municipal electric territory.
Source: Aclara
