Headquartered in Perris, California, EMWD provides services to seven cities in Riverside County and is California’s sixth-largest water agency. With 795,000 individuals served and counting, the Southern California water provider is quickly installing meters to keep up with its expanding customer base. In the past four years alone, the utility has installed more than 7,000 new residential and commercial meters. With a growing number of customers to gather data from each month and California’s ongoing drought creating new regulatory challenges, the organization needed to conserve time and water.

Of the 17,000 transformers on the Wake Electric system, 13,152 were not used to capacity. While it is common to purposefully oversize transformers to minimize future issues, the data showed that many of Wake Electric’s transformers were severely underutilized

Out with the old and in with the new. The move to change out old, high-pressure sodium lights for new LEDs prompted Cobb Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) to think smart.Always looking for the latest technology to improve customer service in Northwest metro Atlanta, the electric provider made the business case that it was also the time to add smart lighting with Sensus VantagePoint® Lighting Control.“We are already rolling the truck and crew to change out the lights, so now is the time to join smart cities and extend our capabilities to include Internet of Things (IoT) technology,” said Cobb EMC’s Director of System Quality and Planning, Bhaji Dhillon.

Automate meter reading capabilities and improve customer service

For scientists at the City of Lakeland, Florida, manually monitoring lake levels to prevent flooding is a time-consuming, resource-draining task, especially during the nearly four-month rainy season.“Maintaining balanced water levels is critical to avoid flooding in residential areas and conserve enough water for the dry season,” said Laurie Smith, manager of the City of Lakeland’s Lakes and Stormwater Division. “Our technician has to drive back and forth between 11 lakes and make sure the levels don’t get too high.”

Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation, a utility company servicing a 2,600 square-mile area in New York, was facing the challenge of transitioning away from a traditional distribution model to accommodate the growing push for renewable energy. The company had a long-term vision that aligned with the state’s commitment to sustainability, but the transition was not as simple as flipping a switch. The utility company needed to ensure quality and reliability as demand evolved. The introduction of their distributed generation program, part of New York State’s energy plan, brought new possibilities and incentives to customers but also introduced a few challenges. The utility company needed to ensure they had the right level of visibility and control over their grid, especially with the introduction of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), small-sized power generation units that attach to the grid and enable the utility to introduce renewable energy sources, such as solar power.