Tips & News - Winter- 2019

A study on the economic loss of water utilities revealed a $4.9 billion loss annually—80% real loss and 20% apparent loss. Yet, sometimes we don’t necessarily pay the true cost of water. As a result, water utilities struggle to justify the economics behind AMI and other modernization. Aside from economic pressures, they’re also trying to save energy. Energy is required to pump water, treat water, and then return waste water. The process requires a lot of energy, so water utilities are also trying to use less energy in the production and distribution of water to their customers. Therefore, managing pressure on the distribution grid - are all very important to water utilities. Unlike electrical utilities, water utilities function similarly to government entities. These are municipalities that worry about the employment impacts. Instead of the decision on why not to use an AMI, the concern is eliminating jobs, such as meter readers, that have been employed for years. Aclara helps ease this transition with community outreach, by retraining these resources and skills, so that when they are replaced by “automation”, they have new skills that can be applied in different roles within the utilities. Like electrical and water, gas industries suffer the same problem of aging infrastructure. Compiling this problem is an increased production of natural gas, due to its low cost. The tapping of the reserves in the United States dropped the price of natural gas dramatically. All of a sudden, gas utilities are collecting less revenue, greatly impacting their ability to invest in technology and modernization. WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGIES THAT ACLARA OFFERS? All of the aforementioned challenges make Aclara not just a solution for utilities but, along with Hubbell, a partner. Our combined solutions help utilities have the visibility into the grid and also optimize their operation so they can react to grid conditions in a timely manner.

Depending on electric, water or gas, there’s different types of AMI technologies. Power line carrier on the electric side are very well suited for lower density populated areas. Wherever that signal is transmitted through the distribution line, we can communicate. The RF technology is most suited for high density or highly populated areas, with different types of RF technology available. Aclara’s Point to Multi-Point technology employs a “home run” deployment technique. Basically, an edge device communicates directly to a data collector, and that then directly communicates back to the utility head- end software. It’s very low latency, which is really important to utilities who want to know what is happening on the grid at a high frequency. You need to know very quickly if there is an issue, and be able to react to it. For end-users, Aclara offers consumer engagement software that will do desegregation analytics, so you can tell if your air conditioner or your water heater is using more energy. We can also tell if you have what we call constant consumption. This is an appliance or resource in your home that has an issue and is constantly using energy. THE TECHNOLOGY OFFERED TODAY SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN ADOPTED BY MANY. FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T, WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE REASONS PREVENTING THEM FROM DOING SO? Grid modernization efforts have already begun with most utilities, but the maturity of the solutions cover a wide range. Utilities have existing point solutions, and they have to integrate those solutions across to have a real end-to-end distribution automation effort within the utility. Popular in both water and gas is the prevalence of one-way communicating networks, (the drive-by solutions). In a drive-by solution, meter readers have to drive down the street to read the meters but not walk to each house and open the pit or look at the gas meter. Although the economics for customers to convert from a one-way communicating network to a two-way

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