EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — El Paso Water is making a big change on how it will measure water consumption from its customers.
The water utility is replacing traditional water meters with what they are calling advanced technology meters.
So far, about 44 percent of the utility’s 220,000 residential customers have already received the advanced meters.
The utility said it is ramping up efforts and hoping to have all residential customers have the new meters by this time next year, said Adam Wickersham, El Paso Water’s vice president of information technology.
New meters for commercial and industrial customers are much larger and will take more time to complete, Wickersham said.
Traditional meters have moving parts and wear out in about five years in terms of accuracy, but can be used for about 10 years, Wickersham said.
The new advanced meters will be entirely digital, he said.
The bottom line is El Paso Water will be able to answer customer service questions more quickly and make better decisions as far as operations, Wickersham said.
“I like to say we aren’t just a water company, but an IT company that makes water,” Wickersham said. “We take all this data we will be getting and will be able to use it to make more informed decisions and be able to lower the cost of water.”
Once all these advanced meters are installed, they won’t need to have people walking neighborhoods in the heat and wind to measure usage each month, he said.
The utility’s conservation team will also be able to be more proactive and be able to send out notifications to customers that their water is never shutting itself off and that they probably have a leak, he said.
Customers will also be able to tell if they have a leak themselves, he said. They will see if water is running in the house. If no one is taking a shower, doing laundry or doing dishes and you can still see water running, you probably have a leak, he said.
The water utility will also launch an app that is tied to the new advanced meters, probably sometime next spring when they reach the 75 percent mark on residential customers having the new technology, Wickersham said.
The water utility said the best way to tell if you have the new meter is you will have a new bright blue meter cover for your meter pit. These plastic covers can take the weight of a car and allow the radio frequency from the advanced meters to travel more easily, he said.
The bottom line is El Paso Water will be able to make better decisions about water operations and customers will have more information about their water usage, he said.
“Every single customer will be getting them, whether you are a large manufacturing plant or a one-bedroom house,” Wickersham said.
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