Project Desciption

MC Engineering, Inc. was retained by the Sierra Business Council (SBC) to prepare an analysis of the Georgetown Divide Public Utility District’s water meters in order to estimate Apparent Losses (water lost due to meter inaccuracy) and better understand the relationship between Apparent and Real Losses (losses due to leakage). A total of 31 meters were analyzed in the study to determine their relative accuracy and the contribution to the total amount of Non-Revenue Water (NRW). Source meters at one of the District’s water treatment facilities were also evaluated in order to estimate the impact of source meter accuracy on overall water loss estimates. The benefits of installing new meter reading technology were also evaluated as part of this study. There is an economy of scale associated with a District-wide meter replacement program that helps justify the addition of more modern meter reading technology. In addition to suggesting meter upgrades and replacements, MC Engineering found that an automatic meter reading (AMR) system would virtually eliminate the need to manually read meters by retrofitting new meters with radios to accommodate a drive-by automatic meter reading (AMR) system. The annual benefits associated with new meter reading technology were estimated along with the benefits of upgrading/re-calibrating meters and the savings for different meter upgrade implementations were calculated.