San Antonio Water System smart meters could be coming to your neighborhood

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) -San Antonio Water System smart meters could be coming to your neighborhood.

The  SAWS board has approved vendor contracts to move forward with a pilot program for Advanced Metering Infrastructure, which is aimed at improving meter reading and billing capabilities.  Currently, the 550,000 SAWS water meters are read manually once a month by about 70 meter readers.

The utility’s Connect H2O program will enable you to monitor your water use in near real time, reducing the chance of a surprise bill.  You’ll also be notified more quickly if a leak is detected.

The SAWS board on Tuesday approved contracts with ITRON for the AMI system, Vanguard Utility Service for meter installation and SmartWorks for meter data management and analytics.

SAWS plans to pilot the technology in three separate test areas across the city starting in March.  If the pilot program is successful, full system deployment is projected to begin in 2022 and will take approximately four years. At that point, customers will be able to receive alerts that will notify them by email or text if the system detects continuous water use

 “These technology improvements will greatly improve the customers’ understanding of their water use and assist them in budgeting for their water bill. Long term, this will result in savings, as well as better planning ability for our customers,” said SAWS Chair Jelynne LeBlanc Burley.

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