City of Fairmont Improves Performance and Service with the Sensus AMI Solution

West Virginia utility reduces excess water usage by 25 million gallons per year

RALEIGH, N.C. (April 17, 2018) – Nestled in the rolling hills of northern West Virginia, collegiate life reigns supreme in the City of Fairmont. As with any college town, residential turnover is the norm, with the constant move-ins and move-outs straining the city’s water utility resources.

“We serve many rental properties and apartments, so there’s a lot to manage in terms of monitoring customer usage and handling inactive accounts,” said Mark Moore, utility controller, City of Fairmont Utilities.

The utility knew it needed a better system to monitor its 14,500 water meters and turned to Sensus, a Xylem brand, to put plans for a smart water system into action. After a thorough evaluation process, the utility determined that the Sensus AMI solution possessed all the capabilities they needed to tackle non-revenue water and meet customer needs.

City of Fairmont Utilities initially installed 6,500 Sensus water meters covering its two largest routes along with commercial meters, with the intention to roll out the full solution over a five-year period. However, the benefits were realized so quickly the utility decided to shorten the implementation.

“We went in and installed the rest of the meters right off the bat,” said Moore.

The City of Fairmont Utilities AMI solution included 14,500 Sensus iPERL® residential meters, and a combined 200 OMNI™ Compound (C²) and OMNI™ Turbo (T²) commercial meters. The utility bolstered its deployment with Sensus FieldLogic™ and Regional Network Interface (RNI)™ software, delivered via the Sensus Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. Finally, the Sensus FlexNet® communication network and Sensus Analytics served as the backbone of the utility’s smart water network, enabling Moore and his team to remotely monitor water usage and increase billing accuracy.

Since launching, City of Fairmont Utilities has achieved more than 99 percent accuracy in its meter readings while saving $30,000 a year by reducing non-revenue water, improving billing accuracy and enhancing overall system performance. Additionally, the utility has notified nearly 3,000 customers of leaks or issues with continuous usage since deployment, helping customers reduce excess water consumption by an average of 25 million gallons per year.

“With time saved on meter readings and billing, we’ve diverted those staff resources to an ongoing data and meter testing program,” said David Sago, utility manager, City of Fairmont Utilities. “This initiative will help us ensure accuracy and great customer service for years to come.”

Read the full case study to learn more about the City of Fairmont’s Sensus AMI implementation.

About Sensus

Sensus helps a wide range of public service providers—from utilities to cities to industrial complexes and campuses—do more with their infrastructure to improve quality of life in their communities. We enable our customers to reach farther through the application of technology and data-driven insights that deliver efficiency and responsiveness. We partner with them to anticipate and respond to evolving business needs with innovation in sensing and communications technologies, data analytics and services. Learn more at sensus.com and follow @SensusGlobal on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

About Xylem

Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology company committed to developing innovative technology solutions to the world’s water challenges. The Company’s products and services move, treat, analyze, monitor and return water to the environment in public utility, industrial, residential and commercial building services settings. Xylem also provides a leading portfolio of smart metering, network technologies and advanced infrastructure analytics solutions for water, electric and gas utilities. The Company’s more than 16,500 employees bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on identifying comprehensive, sustainable solutions. Headquartered in Rye Brook, New York with 2017 revenue of $4.7 billion, Xylem does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands.

The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all – that which occurs in nature. For more information, please visit us at www.xylem.com.