Smart water meters coming in New Orleans
The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans is to instal 140,000 smart water meters for residential and business customers.
The Sewerage and Water Board has announced that the installation of infrastructure including the wireless base stations for data communication as well as staff training on the new technology is almost complete, which will enable the smart meter rollout to commence.
The rollout will replace almost 140,000 analogue water meters with the digital technology, with the intention to resolve challenges stemming from the age of the Board’s water distribution system.
The current water meters are an average 14 years old and are known to often under record the water use.
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With the new smart meters, metering and billing will be more accurate and also the Board intends to benefit with leak detection from the more frequent meter reading.
The Board also intends to use the data to better plan its investments in renovation or expansion of the water infrastructure.
Ghassan Korban, Executive Director, says the Board has spent the last few years planning and building the foundation for the smart metering system.
“As we reach this milestone, we are proud to show tangible progress to our customers. Now, we hope our customers recognise we hear their concerns and are committed to modernising our systems to meet their needs.”
The Board has contracted Aqua-Metric as the smart meter vendor, which in turn supplies Sensus’s FlexNet technology.
The rollout will commence with 1.5-inch and 2-inch diameter smart meters for residential, multi-family and commercial customers, with other sizes following later in the year.
The Board has reported that data from over 95% of the meters will be collected by at least three base stations to ensure backup is available.
The programme is expected to take three years, to complete by the end of 2026.
