Opelika Utilities Whitepaper
A Proactive Approach to Water Loss
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Upon completion of pilot installation, Opelika Utilities found that 28% of residences had some form of water leak occurring at their property. With assistance from Neptune and Continental Utility Solutions, Inc., the Continental CIS software was modified to interpret and display value-added data coming from the E-Coder. Within a few weeks Opelika Utilities began generating customer statements that featured leak notifications displayed on the billing statements, prompting customers to locate and repair their water leaks. The second billing cycle showed a dramatic reduction in leak occurrances from 28% to 18%. The third billing cycle showed further reduction from 18% to 11%. The transferring of the leak detection data from Neptune's E-Coder through the Neptune meter reading system to Continental's CIS software and then to the customer via a billing statement was accomplished without any intervention from Opelika Utilities' customer service representatives.
Opelika Utilities manages a community water system of approximately 11,000 services representing a typical mix of residential and commercial/industrial customers. In addition to the Opelika area, Opelika Utilities provides water to several small communities throughout neighboring counties. In an effort to improve meterreading efficiency and customer service, Opelika Utilities approved the conversion to Neptune's ARB Water Revenue System in 2000 featuring Neptune water meters equiped ProRead absolute encoder registers, R900 transmitters, DAP PC 9800 handheld data collection devices and route management software.
A General Manager of Opelika Utilities, Dan Hilyer was concerned about residential water leaks especially in the older subdivisions where many fixed income families reside. During a board meeting in the summer of 2002, one of Opelika Utilities' customers addressed the board with a high water bill concern. The customer did not deny their use of the water, but merely wanted to address the board to inquire why they did not have technology in place to identify residential water leaks and provide early leak notification to customers to help them avoid exorbitant water bills.
Opelika Utilities described the high/low audit functionality of their meter reading software and explained the limitations of this technique during summer months when water usage rates can have dramatic swings. Opelika Utilities advised the customer that if a more "proactive" technology were available they would be using it.