Page 13 - Yucaipa Valley Water District

Director Memorandum No. 17-017 Page 2 of 10

Technical Project Description

Yucaipa Valley Water District (District) is proposing a district wide Automated Meter Infrastructure
(AMI) system. The major components of an Automated Meter Infrastructure include the smart
meter with transceiver (Smart Point), the tower gateway base stations (TGB), and the regional
network interface (RNI). Utilizing these components, water meter data is conveyed via radio
frequency and cellular communication back to the database (RNI) where the information is used
for billing and consumption reports. The advantages of transmitting the customer meter data with
an Automated Meter Infrastructure are far reaching and include hourly meter reads, detailed water
consumption analysis, leak detection and backflow alarms, as well as the elimination of manual
meter reading. The practice of manually reading each meter in a water distribution system is a
daunting task and requires staff to locate and open the meter box, read the meter register and
then transfer the information into a handheld recording device.

The District has completed the installation of 5,065 smart water meters that are AMI capable. This
represents about 40% of the District’s total 12,637 water meters in the system. Although 40% of
total meters in the system have the capability to be read remotely, District staff continues to
manually read these meters as the District lacks the infrastructure to gather this data remotely.

Implementation of the Automated Meter Infrastructure Project

District staff has completed an application for a grant opportunity offered from The Bureau of
Reclamation in the effort to gain funding for the implementation of the proposed Automated Meter
Infrastructure project. As a part of the guidelines of the grant, a project timeline of three (3) years
is required. If the grant does not materialize, District staff recommends a four (4) year project
timeline. The two project timelines are outlined below.

Project Timeline of AMI without Grant Funding – Phase I through IV

Phase I of the Automated Meter Infrastructure Project

Install 5,065 AMI capable meters throughout the District. [Complete]

Phase II of the Automated Meter Infrastructure Project

Install three tower gateway base stations, required transceivers and establish the regional
network interface thus activating the 5,065 meters installed in Phase I. The three TGBs will be
located at existing water reservoir tanks and are responsible for gathering data from the smart
meters via a licensed radio frequency, then back load the compiled data to the RNI via a cellular
network. Additionally, the existing 5,065 AMI capable meters currently installed will each be
outfitted with a transceiver that will be mounted into an upgraded meter box lid. Then, the regional
network interface will be established to integrate the incoming meter data and the existing
customer billing system.

Phase III of the Automated Meter Infrastructure Project

Phase III will replace the remaining 7,572 meters in the system with smart meters and transceivers
bringing the total number of smart points to 12,637 which includes every meter in our distribution
system. The total conversion to AMI by replacing the existing water meters will be distributed

Yucaipa Valley Water District - February 7, 2017 - Page 13 of 38