METER COMMITTEE’S WINTER WORKSHOP TACKLES
INTELLIGENT WATER SYSTEMS Get
Smart
24 SOURCE spring 2021
ADVANCED METERING
WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE. Wanting
to learn more about a topic but
feeling like it was being explained
in a foreign language. You know you’re
in a technology discussion when you
feel the battering of “TLAs” (Three
Letter Acronyms). Luckily, the Section
provides numerous opportunities to learn
about new technologies, presenting their
practical relevance and defining the buzz
words. There's a lot to be discovered at
conferences, symposiums, and webinars.
Workshops provide a unique opportunity
to focus on a single topic in a half- or full-day
format.
Each January, the Section’s Meter
Committee hosts an annual Winter
Workshop on a wide range of meter-related
topics. This year’s topic was
“AMI Networks and Software," but it
could easily have been "Intelligent Water
Systems (IWS)” or "Smart Water Systems."
The Meter Committee wants to share some
of what we've learned and its relevance to
operators and management.
The Winter Workshop introduced
the idea of an Intelligent Water System.
These systems use technology to gather
water system data and smart software
to analyze the data for better decision-making.
We currently see components
of an Intelligent Water System at many
utilities. The Supervisory Control and
Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems
in our water/wastewater plants, for
example, monitor and control processes.
Advanced Metering Infrastructure
(AMI) gathers hourly reads, alerts and
alarms from our service meters. These
applications, however, are nearly always
siloed or self-contained and not leveraged
By Michele Harvey
Courtesy of Carollo Engineers.
/mesimpson.com
