"The Future of Water Management: AMI and Beyond an Exclusive Interview"

Welcome to the podcast today. Today's guests are Freddie Guerra. He is the North American. Digital water leader for GHD and rick Raleigh. And he is our North American water loss, smart water lead, and he has over 18 years of experience.

Freddie's got over 30 years experience in the business. So, you know, we've got a lot of experience here on the call today. Thank We're here to talk about advanced metering infrastructure and the technology innovations around that and how GHD is helping clients solve those problems.

So Freddie, or Rick,  let's dive into the conversation here. What is advanced metering infrastructure? for the listeners.

Thanks, Sean. And great to be here. Of course, you know, in a short nutshell,

You know, data on your water usage is collected at your meter and that data is then encrypted and sent.

By a signal to a collector, and that could be something on a, on a water tank, it could be a cellular, it could be you know, any number of things, you know, and then the water utility receives that secure data on regular intervals, typically every 15 minutes, and then it's sent to the utility billing system to create a bill for the customer.

You know, and that data could also be used to identify suspected leaks irregular water patterns water pressure issues, you know, or trends in water use that could be used to help the facility improve efficiency. And and then that, that water data can also be used to Can be available to view through a customer portal and then the customer can see their water use.

That's kind of it in a nutshell.

Okay. So, you know, like where I live they, we have a water utility and I know that do they just take daily readings, monthly readings? I mean,  I'm assuming it's like a monthly, you know, reading of how much water I can use. At least that's what comes out of my bill. So I was curious, you know, is there advantages of having, you know, very granular. With this AMI infrastructure.

Well, absolutely. If you're trying to, you know, typically if you're doing a just, you know, the old, the old style manual reading, which, which there are many utilities using right now, a very big one in Washington you're, you're getting one read, it could be every, every quarter and, and, and, and that.

You know, so, so nobody's seeing the trends in their water use and how their water is being used. If you can get a water read every 15 minutes then the utility and the customer can see maybe there's a pattern of water loss. Maybe somebody, you know, the utility can use that information to call the customer and say, hey, you've had continuous water use for 48 hours.

Maybe somebody left a hose bib on in the backyard. That simple. So there's a lot of customer relations involved. And, and if you get more, the more reads you get, the more you can use that data, as I discussed earlier for leak detection, for pressure management, for things like that. Sure. No. Okay.

That makes a lot of sense. And you talk about people and some utilities still do in the old school, like I've got the water guy, the meter, you know, made coming out and checking my meter, you know, and I, you know, I think, like you said, there are still people doing that. But, you know, how, Freddie, has this evolved over the past 15 years with utilities and potentially utilizing AMI to help their business?

Sean, great question. And thank you again for having us on this morning. You know, one thing I wanted to mention is that these initial deployments have occurred between 2005 and 2012. So it's taking a while for the technology to evolve, but it's, it's evolving quickly in the past five years. Now I'll just give you some quick examples in the past, what we were talking about originally, those smart meters would only transmit information one way, so there was only one way communication now with, with the evolution.

Of, of AMI 2. 0 and beyond AMI, we now have the ability to have two way communication. So what does that really mean? So for example, if a utility wanted to ping a meter, they could just press the button and get that information. So, you know, if they wanted to know what the water consumption was, you know, two hours, you know, into the future, they could ping it then and get that information.

But more importantly, there's also added features to these smart meters. Some now have remote closed valves. So, now the utility can just press a button and slowly close that valve to shut off water at a home. So, again, that's the value of the 2 way communication. The other way this is evolved to is now a lot of utilities, consultants, vendors, and contractors are now viewing smart meters as the backbone for a smart water utility.

So, now, instead of looking at a water meter as a meter, now, we really look at it as a sensor. And we'll talk about this later, but some of these water meters now have sensors that are able to register temperature pressure along with with water consumption. So imagine a city that deploys maybe 10, 000 meters or 500, 000 meters like Miami Dade County will be doing in the near future.

Having the ability to now understand. Where water is being used, how it's being used, and why it's being used will allow them to optimize your system and really drive better decision making. And then the last few things I was going to mention too is, you know, a big part of how AMI has evolved is through analytics and machine learning.

When you think about it and what Rick had mentioned, you know, there's some utilities that only take one meter read every month. And believe it or not, there's some in the US that take one meter read every three months. So imagine now having the ability to collect data points every 15 minutes. What are you going to do with all that data?

Well, now we have the ability to analyze that information. And like Rick had mentioned, start analyzing that data, identifying different patterns, also predicting. So through, through this, we now have the ability to understand what's going on. Predict what may happen, and if something does happen, what do we do?

And then the last evolution of, of, of AMI today is really about customer engagement. In the past, really the way AMI originated was. And especially in state of California is that they wanted the ability to give the ability to customers to understand how much energy they were using and that trans translated into or transitioned into the, the water industry.

So now it's no longer about knowing how much water you're consuming, but how and when and really how, how can I use my water more efficiently? How can I conserve it? So now it's about changing behavior versus just knowing how much water you're using. Yeah, no,

that's really interesting. Great. Great take on that.

Hey, Sean, can I just add one thing? Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Rick. There's also a couple factors of safety involved. We're we've been working some with agency in D. C. That has, you know, 400, 000 meters. Those are all read manually. And they're the greatest workman's compensation claims that come are from those guys that are out there manually reading the meters, you know, they're walking streets, you know, from, I don't know, getting hit by a car or different

things like that, or tripping over something in the, you know, maybe getting mugged,

you know?

Yeah. And then as Freddie was mentioning with the remote shutoff. depending on what areas you go into. We did a project actually in South central LA quite a few years ago when I was with my previous firm. And you know, those are not the safest areas to go into. And then when you have to go shut somebody's water off and you're manually doing that, you never know what you're going to run into.

I being able to do that remotely, it can help your, you know, your staff also in a safety.

Well, yeah. I mean, just think about if your utility, especially in a big municipality. You know, rental renters are changing homes and, and their locations constantly turning the water off, turning it on. I mean, you know, a utility probably is nonstop, always busy with, you know, shutting on or turning on water, shutting off and turning on.

That to me is like a huge benefit to have the ability just to hit the button, turn it off. They stop clocking the water going into the place. They can build them appropriately, close out the account. That's gotta be a big deal. Thank you.

It is. And also one other thing your, if your staff is spending all their time.

reading meters and, and also that, that one in DC, the amount of rereads they have to do because they go out and manually read it. Then they come back and then the customer says, calls them up and says, Hey, my, why is my water usage so high? Well, who knows why, maybe Johnny left, you know, the hose bib on in the backyard, but they have to send a person out there again to do a reread and look at the meter.

And, and that can all be changed with AMI. And you can then use your staff for more important things, like checking for leaks, doing your valve turning exercises. There's all kinds of things that your staff can be doing your field staff, that they're not doing. And, you know, as we know, the utilities are not, can't just keep hiring people to do different things.

They need to use their staff, you know in the right way.

Sure, sure. Well, you know, kind of like a lot of the topics or the, I guess, the, the concerns around the need to have AMI, you know, how is ESG driving the water sector and utilities to assess or reassess their priorities in this space by really actually adopting and deploying AMI?

I think it comes down to two things, really about water affordability. And you hear a lot about this throughout North America. You know, can a household or individual really afford to pay their water bill? And through AMI, it really helps because again, you, you can ping your, your water usage every day, every hour, if you want it, but you get better understanding of how much water you're exactly using.

And then you can manage your bill at the end of the month. So that, you know, if you do have a 2300 dollar bill. You understand that it's going to happen versus, you know, it just coming in the mail at the end of the month and really not knowing how much water you've been using. So, really, I think it helps address a water affordability.

And then the other big 1, 2 is water equity. So, you know, water affordability is the financial side of it. Water equity is really about being fair and just. Does everybody have the same level of service? So by, you know, installing these systems throughout an entire city, town or utility, you're ensuring that everybody gets the same level of service.

Everybody's going to get that same read be able to tap into their phones. Sorry, the meters via their phones to get that information. And then also, again, when there's extreme weather event, you know, the possibility of a utility or city shutting down those, those meters to ensure there's no cross contamination.

But again. When you look at ESD

and water affordability and water equity. Well, I

was going to touch on water scarcity too, right? I mean, what about that? There seems to be a risk there as well that it could help

out with.

And that's correct. So, you know, I, I live in North Texas and, you know, just recently in the past 10 years, they built 2 new reservoirs here, which is really unheard of.

And it's really due to water demand and that water supply in the future and addressing water scarcity. But again, with a, my, you know, how much water you're using. You can manage your water use more efficiently conserve water. So again, AMI does have a big impact on undressing water scarcity. Gotcha.

Well, Rick, Hey, why are some utilities slow to adopt

AMI?

Well, and there's, there's lots of, there's lots of reasons we've run across different agencies where. They don't, you know, they don't want to have their staff lose their jobs. These guys are out walking and doing water meters. We try to convince them that they're not going to, they just have to be re, you know, reassigned to do different things, but that can be a big driver.

Just, just that simple thing of you've got. 15 guys that are out reading meters and they're all going to lose their jobs and you know, they, their managers don't want them to do that. There can be, you know, it's a cost. I mean, if you're looking at, you know, 500 per meter to go to AMI, 400, 000 meters is a, you know, 200 million project.

That's a very big project. And there's other jobs we're working with agency in, down in Lake forest in Southern California, where, you know, they say, Hey, we have this, these, this other, these other projects we need to do. We have to spend money on it could be a technology issue. They have to, they have to change their, all their systems, you know, possibly, you know, do their existing systems, will they work with the new AMI system? Have to change out their current billing system. Do they have to change out some of their other software? Programs and

sounds like it's a kind of a complex evaluation that needs to take place for utility to adopt it.

Because like you said, you've got financial interests. Yeah, you've got technology interest. You've got, you know, data management interest. You've got, you know, how do I synthesize this data for management purposes? I mean, there seems to be a lot to go into making this change. But it seems to me though, at the end of the day, the ROI for the deployment of AMI I think, I mean, just on the surface outweighs a lot of these, you know, these, these stumbling blocks, right.

Where, you know, utilities are struggling. How are we positioning this ROI in a way, you know, with GHT, with our clients to really, You know, embrace this technology.

Well, I was going to say one thing. Sorry, and you can, you can jump in. But you know, I think it goes all the way back to water loss. I mean, and that's, that's, that's a big part and that's where AMI can help.

I mean, they, there are agencies we're working in like in Qatar, there's Saipan, there's all kinds in America where you have over 50% water loss. So you're losing, you're, you're, you're pumping that water or pulling it in, you're treating that water. So there's energy chemicals, you're sending that water out into your system and losing half of it.

You know, if you were driving your car and you filled up your gas tank and only half of the gas made it in, the rest filled out, you would, you would freak out, right? And so I think AMI, you know, can help with that. And what it does is when you're doing your feasibility study and looking at your business case and looking at your return on investment.

That's the first thing you do is you look at your water loss. Maybe you start testing your waters. You make sure your data is, is correct. And then, and then you move on from there and that, and that's a big driver. I think that, you know, coming from the water loss industry, Freddie, Freddie has something to say too.

Yeah.

So, so Sean, you know, going back to your question about ROI and efficiency, I think some, some of the other things too that, that Rick had mentioned too, you know, the biggest one is operational efficiency. So we do, we do look at water loss. It's about apparent losses and real losses. So what are apparent losses?

That's really, if, if your, is your meter underperforming, is it, is it turning in, you know, in the right direction and at the right speed, you know, there, there's a lot of consensus out there that, you know, meters begin to degrade over a certain, you know, period, which may or may not be true. But the thing is, is, is when we look at return on investment and efficiency, it is about water loss.

It's about apparent losses and underperforming meters. And real losses in your distribution system, but really where the greatest returns come in is, again, if you have a large crew that goes out and actually reads the meters, obviously, there's a significant cost savings by having them re skilled and retooled to do other things.

I think the other things that that, when we look at ROI and efficiency, it's about improved billing. So, as I mentioned before, some of these meters are underperforming. So, you may be losing revenue in that regard. So, again, having the ability to have new meters registered correctly, you're recapturing that lost revenue.

And then a few other things about ROI when you look at customer engagement is another big 1 2 is, you know, you're actually deploying the system to enhance customer experience. So the more people that you have participating in your portal, using that information, your return on investment, and it's going to be greater.

And then the last thing I was going to mention, it's really about system optimization. It's not only about better meter reading and it's optimizing your system with this information. Like I mentioned, now, you know, where the demand is occurring, you know, do you, do you, is, is your pressure too high or are your pumps, you know, pumping full speed when there's no demand?

They're really understanding that you can optimize your system. So that's part of that payback too.

And identifying where those leaks are too. So you can send crews out to solve those, you know, problems where, where they're, they're, they're happening. That would be huge, great, you know, great information to have at your fingertips, you know, when I think about it.

All this information comes in what about adopting some sort of a platform for a utility to take this information, to manage it properly, to train them on, because that to me seems to be probably a piece that we're not, you know, we're kind of haven't really discussed yet, but how do utilities adopt a platform that with all this information coming into the system, because they're not going to be sophisticated enough to create one for sure, right?

So, Talk a little bit about how or what's out there in the industry for that.

So, so initially that there are meter management data systems that, that AMI vendors will provide. And really that's all that information coming into one location. Right. You know, to help you manage the meter health and kind of look at consumption patterns.

But the, the, the real thing that, that utilities should be looking for in the near future, and some are already doing this. Is leveraging a smart water platform and really it's a digital twin. So now you have the ability of bringing in all your AMI information into the centralized platform, GIS, work order system, SCADA information going all into one central location.

So now you have visibility of what's going on. Not only from a meter reading and billing perspective, but really in operations again, knowing what's out there. So you're starting to see a lot of vendor vendors pair up with software providers that provide these overarching platforms. And 1 great example of that is what census and xylem are doing.

They recently partnered with go agua. Which is, I consider one of the leading platform for a digital twin, but they have the ability again to bring in that AMI information. Like I mentioned before, smart meters are really the backbone of a smart water utility, but without having that overarching platform, you're never going to have visibility or control and having that ability to really optimize your systems.

Gotcha. So, so there's, there are tools and solutions out there to help utilities manage this. But I guess now a utility is going to have to hire a really sophisticated, smart, you know, digital person to actually help actually manage this business for them too. Because, you know, a lot of these guys are rural communities.

They don't really have a big, you know, pool of talent to pull from. They really can dive into these types of capabilities. You know, what. What is what does the utility do with that?

So, you know, that's a good question. And more and more, like I had mentioned, a lot of the initial in my developments, we're really aim our deployments were automated meter reading.

So, basically, it's a truck going through a neighborhood. Collecting that information. So now you're seeing many utilities now look at advanced metering infrastructure and you'll see a solicitation every week from from utilities throughout North America. So, you know, they all want to pivot to to that new technology, but as as Rick had mentioned, some of the challenges is really understanding.

Are you going to pick the right technology? And then also, once you pick the right technology, do you have the ability to manage that data? What are you going to do with it? How are you going to optimize your system or increase reliability of your system? So that's really where consultants like G. H. D.

digital come in. We'll establish a road map initially. And we'll use some of our digital solutions to tell clients exactly where they need to start through some of our solutions. And then everything that we do really is really connected through that road map. So we'll help identify underperforming meters know where we need to start with those installations.

And then we'll start getting into the distribution system, looking at pipes. How do you manage your pressure? How do you manage your leaks? How do you improve water quality? So through this roadmap that we initially developed for, for cities and utilities, really sets us apart from our competitors. Because again, it shows where you need to start, really explains why you're starting, and then shows that that vision of where you would like to be five, 10 years from now.

So are there

challenges with getting this information from the utilities so we can assist them with the developing this road map for them? I mean, talk a little bit about that. I got to imagine there's some there.

I'm going to defer to Rick on that.

It can be in and you'll come across. So just as a tiny aside we also do water audits for California agencies. I live in California. So, you know, everybody that has over 3000 connections is required to do a water on it. So when you do that water on it, you look at their data and you and you just realize how inaccurate that data can be and how hard it can be to get the data.

And if you talk about internationally in Qatar, we're, we're doing water loss and meter work there. It's almost impossible to get data and they'll tell you, Hey, are you, we're going to get you our data, even in Saipan that's happening also, but it's the accuracy of that data. And I think that's where our digital practice comes, comes into play because we can take that data and we can look at it and we can determine.

How that data is inaccurate. I mean, you have to have accurate data before you start these projects. Yeah It it it it works out It takes time and then we look at all the data to see and we have enough experience to know Kind of how that data is is inaccurate if that makes sense and we can help them to you know Clean that up before they start And that's another reason that is positive in going to AMI because whether it's having all your your distribution system and everything GPS, you know, so you know, where everything is from valves to hydrants that also, when you go to AMI, that also happens as well.

Following meters, your GPS thing, you know, the coordinates and where those meters are, rather than just having things, what they call geo referenced, which is, is based on an address. Gotcha.

So it sounds like, sounds like there's opportunities to help utilities with just getting their data collection house in order, so to speak, because then they could have.

You know, an opportunity to have somebody like us come and reassess that information and that data and analyze it and have, you know, in a more informed decision on where's the best way to, or what is the best way to deploy AMI, where, where that we see inefficiencies, things like that. So even if they even don't go down the AMI path, it sounds like there's a service just to get them.

to get their data in, in order. Is that, is that, is that accurate? Fair to say?

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, sorry. I was just going to say one more thing. And, and also when you look at all that, it can help determine some of the smaller agencies, you know, maybe they don't go to an AMI, maybe they just stick with an AMR because they have areas, there's some disadvantaged communities.

Kind of where I live, where they want their guys out in the field, looking at those meters and looking around and because people will go in and you know, mess with the meter. There's all kinds of things like that. But anyway, go ahead. Freddie. I was,

you know, I was going to mention, you know, the other challenges that utilities have, and we go through this process when we do the cost benefit analysis and these am I feasibility studies for.

Our clients, but really when you look at an organization like a utility, you know, some of the information we, we need may be in billing, other information is in customer service planning, you know, operation and maintenance. So that's the other challenge too, is, is, you know, we hear this all the time about breaking down those data silos.

A lot of these cities and utilities store that information in different silos. And that's, you know, the other main point to, you know, how we could help clients is that truly, you know, breaking down those silos and sharing that data because, you know, they may not move forward with an AMI solution, but if that data is being shared, understanding again, where water is being used, why it's being used, you know, the problems they had from a maintenance perspective, if all that was shared and they all had one common, you know, Visibility or source of truth.

It would help improve operations collaboration within within a utility. Gotcha.

Sorry, one more one more thing. That's an interesting take up that Freddie is talking about because there's agencies one that we're working with right now down near Riverside. where all the departments are very cohesive, they work together, they meet together they share all their information and it really works well where there's other agencies where they, they just, you know, this, this department's over there and this department's over here, they don't really share the data.

So if there's a guy out in the field and he's updating. who knows, a customer service line or something. The other, a different department, maybe the GIS department doesn't ever get that information that that, that pipe was, was upgraded and replaced. And so then when you're asking these agencies for that data, you're getting, you know, it's not Apple's.

You know to apples it's apples to kiwi or something, you know We're we're just kind of like going. Well, this says this and this says this and right part of what we do though In our feasibility and business case is to, you know, scrub all that in to figure all that out. Gotcha. Gotcha. So

when we talked about creating basically a digital twin of a utilities infrastructure, you know, so maybe talk a little bit, Freddie, like how has GHD helped utilities in that space assisting with the development of a quote unquote digital twin of the utility system and how that connects to potentially a platform.

Of some sort that, you know, that they may need to use or, or does it work that way? Or do we have to do it in a platform systems that they end up adopting? So talk a little bit about how that process works. Or if we're doing that service.

Yeah, so we do provide that service. And again, it's, it's through a visioning or a road mapping for an AMI system.

So, you know, not only do we help out with, with the helping utilities understand that the technology and, you know, whether they should invest in it or not and looking at the benefits of it. The other thing that we provide is a roadmap. And like I mentioned before, it's like, where, where do you start? And what are the really true benefits of this?

Obviously we all know it's going to enhance customer experience, but how does it empower and enable my, my staff to do a better job? So through, through this roadmap, we start showing the different connections. It's about people, data and processes. So as we start connecting all this. Utilities start recognizing, okay, you know what, this is a lot of information.

This is a lot of ways to connect the dots. How am I going to get it all into one central location? And you're starting here, you know, a lot of utilities and cities talk about digital twins. And so part of our planning process and the way we approach AMI. Again, it's always, we'll talk about AMI 2. 0 or going beyond AMI, and it's really about how do we optimize operations within a utility.

And it all goes back to creating this digital twin. Like I mentioned before, that digital twin gives you the ability to understand what's going on now, predicting what may happen. If something does happen, what do you do? And all that is, is part of this approach in, in, in this roadmap. Again, if you were to look at it, we talk about meters, we talk about pipes, talk about pressure management, water quality, energy optimization.

We even talk about how we tie all that into a hydraulic model, making it. Dynamic versus static. So not only do can you use it for planning, now you can use it for operations, but all that feeds into a centralized smart water platform. Yes. And again, that creates, that, that digital twin for the utility. And as I mentioned before, all this is, is really derived from that roadmap that we would create for a client.

So we can, we can do some of the digital twinning type development for utilities, take their information and create that model for them. Which is a great, you know, added you know, I mean, that's a great service because, you know, now they can make informed decisions and know what's going on. When does GHD support like the deployment of platforms?

Like, do we help do implementation of the actual. Software that's, you know, that might be selected, or is that done by the software provider?

So, we, we provide that service to obviously, we, we were agnostic and industry. So, our thing is, is about bringing the best in class to our clients. So, you know, we do work with various vendors right now and software providers and smart water platforms.

But again, it's really understanding the client's need and the best fit. So we have the ability to evaluate the platform based on client's criteria or our, our criteria. But again, it's always about bringing best in class, then also being mindful of the budget or the appetite, financial appetite, the client may have in looking at a platform.

Well, I would also say to that, that we kind of act in terms of the agency of the utility. We kind of act as an extension of them during the whole process and the whole project. And, and part of that is you're getting these reeds that are coming in. And we're doing a small one in down in Central California that's finishing up.

So it's about 6, 000 meters. And one of their things was like, I'm, you know, I used to get one meter read a month. Now I'm getting one every 15 minutes. What am I, what do I do with all this data? And we have over the installation project the time period of that, we've shown them how to, you know, have that data coming in.

It has to be transferred into a type of CSV file that can be used to the billing system. And typically the vendor. Is not going to help with that portion of it, but having it in this certain format Allows them to do that and we and we help them with that and then we help them From everything from acting as a go between, you know with the vendor with the installation contractor and with the with the utility So we kind of act as a buffer because there's always going to be issues that come up, you know You have an installation contractor that's out there with a Using, you know, a monkey wrench on on a pipe and the pipe gets twisted.

Well, whose fault is that? And who, who, who is responsible for that? And we can help with that, you know, those

things. So when we think about, you know, you mentioned earlier, Hey, it's all a lot of this AMI is about customer experience type stuff, and I, and I agree it's, it's a huge component of it. Right. But at the end of the day, the utilities, like.

How much is this going to cause me? How much money am I saving? How much efficiencies can I put into the system? We want the customers to be happy. But we, we gotta, we gotta do, if we're going to do this, we need, we gotta know that we're going to one save, save water, make money. And it's not going to cost us an arm or leg to do this.

So talk about, you know, how, you know, we are helping them understand the ROI and how long does it take to recoup the cost? Of the investment before they're starting to really see benefits.

So that's, that's something and keep going to the road map that we have. And it's, it's, it's divided into 5 or different 5 or 6 different stages.

So when, when we look at return on investment and again, depending on, it really depends on how many meters they're looking to, to convert. You know, is it, is it 500, 000 meters, a hundred thousand meters, or is it 6, 000 meters? Do you want to do them all at one time? You want to do it over, you know, two year, five year period, or do you stretch it over it?

You know, 10 year period. Really that's how we, we help our clients. First of all, is really understanding, you know, the, the. The money it's going to take to make this investment and do you really need to do it all at one time? If not, can you phase it? And that's where some of our digital tools comes in.

Like I mentioned, meter analytics, we have the ability to look at all meters at one time, understand which ones are underperforming and how much money you're losing. By understanding that, then we could say, okay, you do, if you want to change out 300, 000 meters, really, these are the first 50, 000, 100, 000 you need to focus on.

Based on the amount of water that you're losing or revenue that you're losing from that. And then the other thing that we do, you know, you mentioned about realizing and, and, and the, the return on investment, how quickly that happens. So, when you look at the roadmap that we provide, we talk about the initial beginning.

You know, where do you want to start? What's the vision of your system? And then we start the planning phase. How long is it going to take to deploy these meters? You know, when do you set up your communication network? When do you start that software integration? And then as we're doing all that, you start do a soft launch.

You start maybe putting in 10, meters, depending on how much meters you're looking to deploy. Ultimately, you do a soft launch and you start realizing some of the benefits. Your customers will start using the portal. You start enhancing that portal. If there's not enough participation, why not? Do we have to do it in another language that they get greater participation?

And then the other thing too, once that information starts coming in, you know, how do we start using it to empower and enable our employees to optimize operations, start saving on energy and other things like that maintenance. And then once we go through that, then we start transitioning from a. Reactive utility to a proactive utility utility.

So now we're used to the AMI system. We're getting some of the benefits. We're getting some of that return on investment. Now we're going to be a truly AMI enabled utility. And then, then we look one more stage and how do we continue to modernize that system? So, again, we're always taking into fact that this is a major investment initially, but also how do you, how do you generate and not ensure that you don't leave any, any money on the table when you do do this investment?

But the other thing that we do also in, in, in regards to return on investment. We're always looking at other ways to generate revenue from these AMI systems.

Yeah,

that's great. That's great. I mean, I got to imagine being in the utilities position, selecting a partner to help them walk through this process, especially if it's new to them and they don't really have a lot of experience.

I mean, they're doing old school. It's gotta be pretty daunting. You know, wouldn't you agree?

I know. I, I completely agree. And, you know, typically, and we go through this process all the time, you know, obviously, there's the request for for qualifications requests for proposal, but, you know, most utilities, like, within any major investment, and this is what's unique about this investment or this project is that it touches.

Every business unit within a utility organization, unlike you're building a pipeline or a new water plant truly touches every business unit. So you know, being mindful of that, when we go through this process and utilities, again, are well acquainted with RP RFP RFQ process, what they're looking for is.

You know, does the company really have the credibility and experience and really understand the water industry and the AMI industry? Well the other thing too, you know, are they bringing in innovation? Not just the same old thing. You know, there's a lot of clients that do invest in AMI systems and then a year, 2 years.

After that, that initial deployment, they're not truly realizing the benefits that were initially calculated. So that's something that we really look at is, you know, we want to ensure that these outcomes are going to happen. So, you know, we, we also structure the RFP RFQ process differently when we're the owner's rep.

So, not only do we just look at technical qualifications, and that's what the industry's done the past 15 years, you're to look at a typical solicitation for an owner's rep, which would be like basically that the previous consultant will cut and paste. And it's all about specs on the communication network specs on on the meter.

Specs on outreach, but in reality, like I said, when we write a RFPs, RFQs, we're really looking for that, that creative perspective, the innovation, what else can you do? How else can the client benefit? So we don't limit, you know, the. The thinking just to meet the requirements is also explain to us how you're going to meet him now and in the future.

Gotcha.

Gotcha. And if I could just add 1 thing to that, I think the difference with G. H. D. also is that, you know, being a global firm, obviously. And we have so many different capabilities of some of the people, some of the other consulting firms that we go against, you know, this is all they do. They do water meters and AMI implementation, whereas we can come in and we can do, we have asset management right.

Because asset management is a huge part of. An AMI system, I think, and, and go AMI. We have engineering, we have construction management. We can, we can help them with with replacing customer service lines. Cause those can be put in poorly and those have leaks. And we can, we sometimes when you start putting the meters in, you can, you can find out that.

All your customer service lines are bad in certain areas, depending on what material they use or how it's installed. And we can help design that, we can help oversee the installation, and we can help with all those areas also. So I think that's a big plus. Yeah,

no, I mean, and all the analytics behind you know, digital analytics.

That's gotta be a huge... You know, capability that maybe the competitors aren't, you know, offering along with the digital twin development. It just seems like if, so I'm thinking, you know, you've got a, you've got a utility says, you know, I really want to get into AMI, but I don't know that I could go all the way, you know, like, I don't think I can really deploy five or 6, 000 units, but what if they were to say, you know, cause I'm thinking not all valves or meters are the same, what if they had like, you know, big, you know junction meters like, you know, Hey, you know, in the trunk line, I've got a meter here and I get real time here and I can start to dissect regions of my, of my you know, neighborhoods, but maybe not at the individual, you know, level is there value in that type of a strategy to, you know, you know, step into it in a stepwise process over time versus.

The whole enchilada at once,

and there is Sean. So I'm sure Rick will add to this. So, you know, it's well known in the industry, a lot of your water loss and a lot of the revenue that you're, you're, you're not capturing really come from your large meters. So typically, you know, we'll advise your clients, maybe focus on your, on your large meters first and do some analytics just to see how they're performing.

And then, you know, the, the other thing too, is, is, as we start looking at, at different areas within the city with their limited budget again, using analytics, we know exactly which meters underperforming. So, you know, and 1 thing I didn't mention is that, you know, that analytic also has. The expecting expected remaining useful life of that meter.

So again, by having that information and understanding the client's budget, now, obviously we know where we need to start and then basing, you know, those meter retrofits or replacements based on, on that data analytic solution that we have. But one thing I want to stress is that, yeah, we, we can phase it, but ultimately, like I said, at some point, they, they're going to need to, to, to go full, full deployment for the entire city to get real benefit from this.

So we talk about AMI and we're talking about what it is, but it sounds like there's a new version of it coming out this AMI 2. 0. You know, how, how are utilities leveraging AMI 2. 0 or even going beyond AMI, you know, Freddie, I mean, we've, I mean, we're kind of weaving some of these points in, but can we be more specific here in this part of the

discussion?

Yeah. So, you know, actually we've been talking about it the past 40 minutes, but when, when you get that, yeah, AMI 1. 0. It was all about better meter reading and better billing and providing some information to the customer. Now we

got the two way stuff and it's a game changer with all the other sensor capabilities.

And that's what we're talking

about. Exactly. It's it's, we still want to enhance that customer experience, but now it's really shifting on the operational side. How do we enable and power staff? Did to get value from the AMI system, but really how do we leverage that AMI system to get greater visibility and control of our distribution systems?

So really that's what that AMI 2. 0 is. Gotcha.

Well, how is GHD digital disrupting the AMI

industry? I I'll provide some quick examples here and I'll, you know, I'll have Rick chime in, but you've been hearing us talk a lot about this meter analytic. Solution, and it's really a disruptor in the industry because again, in the past, when you would do cost benefit analysis, you would use historical data from, from the city, 3, 5 years of information, and you would make these conservative estimates and projections, you know, what the payoff may be the payback and how long it would be.

By actually using analytics and, and again, this is an algorithm that's been trained, we, we now know exactly how well those meters are performing, how much water is being lost, how much revenue is being unaccounted for, and then remaining useful life. So that's one way we're disrupting the industry is by using analytics to, to really pinpoint where we need to start.

The other thing that we're working on too, and Rick's been part of this, is that we're using visual analytics or computer vision. So, so basically what, what happens is that when, when a city elects to move forward with an AMI system, the contractor, the vendor will go out and install these meters. And the contractor is required to document everything about that meter.

So they, they take photographs of the old meter, the write down the, the old register reading on the old meter, and then they'll take photographs of the new installation. So part of, of being a consultant or trusted advisor for utilities, they would hire us to oversee the program, but then also we do quality control checks out in the field.

And again, if we're talking about 100, 200, 000 meters, there's no way we could check each one to confirm the accuracy of the installation. So now we're taking those photographs that that that the contractor takes and we're training the algorithm to say, okay, these photographs are bad installations. And these are good installations.

So now on new projects, when we have all these photographs, we will feed them into this, this algorithm and basically it's going to denote which ones are questionable or which ones are installed incorrectly. So now we have the ability to not only QC 100% of the meters. Now, we can hone our inspection resources a lot better versus just randomly selecting to 5% of the metering population.

We can go where the issues really are.

Gotcha. I would just, I would just add to that, that, you know incorrectly can mean many different things. Freddie was, was was saying it can be as simple as. You know, not tightening the meter spuds enough, the water is leaking out of that. You may not know about that depending on where you live and how the water flows.

Maybe the water just goes straight down, maybe, and it doesn't surface. It could go on for, for a couple years because now you're not looking in that meter box anymore because you're, it's being read by AMI. So you could go two years without opening a meter box and looking at the meter. And, and the other thing that, that, that it can be is that this happened to us and we did a project in San Bruno and the, you know, meter A, it needs to be installed on house A.

Well, if you put meter A on house B and you're not checking that, that could go, because you have, you have two houses, they're using about the same amount of water and one, one house is using extraordinarily. extra amount. It may go on for a while and you're building house a for customer bees water. And that was happening.

And that we didn't figure that out until it was a summer vacation. And one of the houses was gone for three months. They came back and said, Wait a minute, we didn't use any water. Well, I could see that'd be a problem. Yeah. And maybe it's not a huge, you know, you're talking, you know, dollars or tens of dollars, but if you're, if you know, it's just, it's just the confidence of the customer.

Also, you'd be like, you don't know where my meters is, is located, but you're billing me for a meter. That's not my meter. I mean, so, and again, customer relations is. Is important

with that. Well, I mean, just think if you live in a duplex or quadplex or something like that. Right. I mean, do the meters, are they designed to, you know, have that much definition in, at the the meter box where this apartment here has got his and, you know, I mean, yeah.

Okay. Good. Good. Well, here's a question for you. You know, what is the, what's the like percentage of the type of clients that GHD is working with, you know, versus, is it like municipalities or is it, you know, private utilities, you know, kind of, you know, where does it, where does that sit for us? Because, you know, some of that seems to be, you know, maybe you have more of an adoption from a private utility.

On AMI versus a public utility, but I mean, is there any difference there? Do you see any trends in that?

So, yeah, most of the work we do are for public utilities and, you know, for, for private utilities, they have transitioned to AMI a lot quicker than public utilities. Cause obviously they're running their, their organization as a business and they need to make a profit.

So. It is important that they, they streamline and have the most efficient processes and tools when it's, it's a private utility. But, but again, like I said, most of the work we do do is on the public sector side. And then what's interesting to Sean, the question that you pose, you know, we're actually looking at some potential projects in, in the state of New York, actually in the Manhattan, New York City area.

You know, there's, there's a lot of real estate companies now that can see the value of AMI and having the ability to have individual meters within their buildings, even on different floors to know how much water is being used, much more efficient they could be because this is all ESG related. So we're also seeing now AMI go into that space too.

Right,

right.

Well, does AMI help with, like, the whole circular economy strategies of

water? So, you know, when I look at circular economy and AMI, really, I see it three ways. One is about resource efficiency. We've been talking a lot about it, about using water more efficiently, conserving water. But when you look at the other aspect of it, when we talked about, you know, manual reads, the traditional meter reading process is very wasteful.

It's paper driven. You're driving these routes. So really, when you look at circular economy, there's that waste reduction part of it, because now when you have AMI, You have less trucks rolling out. You have less paper being used. And then the last thing I wanted to mention too is really it's the product life cycle or the life of that product's being extended.

So a lot of the products we've used in the past, you know, had a shelf life, maybe 5, 10, 20 years, really depending on the product and the system that we're talking about. But now that some of these products that we're using in these AMI systems have a longer shelf life. And required less maintenance. So again, when we talk about circular economy, it's really those three things that really stand out for me.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, that's good to hear. Okay. Well, let's do this. Let's go into a little bit of a lightning round, so to speak. We're kind of getting towards the end of the interview here and we've had such a great conversation and I know we could go a lot longer because my mind keeps thinking about the questions that I just want to keep pinging you guys.

I think I better just kind of hold back a little bit or we might be going way long. Hey, what if you know, let's see if you're sitting in a utilities shoes, where can GHD digital provide the biggest value with the digital innovation and technology services we offer?

I think, I think for me, it's really a lot of our competitors and we do this too.

We talk about digital transformation. And that scares a lot of utilities in cities, because when you talk about digital transformation, it's about changing the way they operate and it's new systems, it's new technology. It's, it's big money. So when, if we're sitting in the chair office of say of a director, assistant director, whatever at a utility, really where we bring the best value, it's about digital optimization.

And the difference with that and transform transformation is that we're focusing on how do we improve your existing processes, your systems, the way you work to, to basically enhance it. You know, again, take advantage of technology, new ways of working. But again, it's, it's smaller dollars. It's taking small steps.

Because again, we talk about digital transformation in the water utility, there's a lot of people fearful of it. I mean, lose your job. It's really complicated. But when we talk about digital optimization, everybody wants to do that. Everybody's focused on how do we maximize our operation and maintenance spent?

How can we make that better? Because, you know, when you see the federal dollars and state dollars, there's less and less money for these major capital investments. So everybody's focused on OpEx. So it, when again, the best value that we can provide through our services is focused on digital optimization versus transformation.

Well, it kind of probably leads to this next question though, is where, where do you see the biggest opportunities in the market over the next five

years? So I'll let Rick answer after I do, but really I think the biggest thing, and you hear this, Over and over, whether it's, it's private industry or public industry or sector, it's about customer enhancement or customer experience.

Everything is going to be customer centric. So really that's where the biggest opportunity is for a water utility is understanding their clients better, being able to meet the needs when they, they have that need. So for example, I may get on the website and I want to click a button and say, Hey, what's going on in my backyard.

You know, again, that's the customer expectation now and in the future. So that's really where I see the biggest I guess, space in the market that that needs to be addressed in the next five years is really how do we take advantage of the technology, the process and tools that we have to enhance that customer experience?

Because again, you see it on on the private sector side. Amazon's probably the best one. It's predicting what I'm going to order. You should send me texts and emails about what I should be looking at next. That's the way a government should be in five, 10 years from now. I was really anticipating that next need of customers.

Sure.

Sure. Well, I was just going to add that, you know, the whole smart city thing, you know, if you look at the Laura Wann technology or a couple other different technologies, you can use cities are, are using that. To, you know, estimate or predict streetlights. They're using it to determine if a garbage can a dumpster is full enough to have to send a guy out to empty it.

What if, you know, 'cause you're on a regular schedule and you're picking that dumpster up every, every week. Well, what if it's only a third full every week? Why, why send somebody out to, to, to empty that? And the, the technology that is tied with and to a m I can help with that in our, as simply as helping you to determine the best times to use your washer and dryer.

There's all kinds of things like that. And I think that's where it's going. And that's the exciting part. And I think that's what people want, you know,

what, what I think you're right. And, and if another, another area I was thinking about is what about water quality? I mean, with these meters themselves as well, like, you know, Oh, my hardness in my water is this, you know, you need to update and maybe increase your water softener at the house.

I mean, what if the, the, the customer had alerts on that? To to support the water utility. I mean, are we thinking that that's where this is going beyond as

well? So, so 2 things there, Sean is, yeah, there is a trend for utilities to get into the house and take advantage of the smart water devices are smart.

Devices in a home, like Rick had mentioned, you know, imagine, you know, five years from now, you want to put clothes into a washer and it's going to tell you now's the wrong time to do it because of the water demand and energy tariff. Here's the best time to do it. But going back to your question about water quality, it's really about from the house into the actual utility system.

So, as I mentioned before, there are products out there now, water meters that have the ability to measure temperature and pressure. So, there's utilities like the city of Houston. There's some utilities in Tennessee looking at this is how do we correlate the temperature that's being registered by these residential meters into water age?

And, for example, of water age, which really equals water quality, if it starts exceeding 48 hours, 72 hours. Based on this intelligence, how do we automate the flushing of our system to ensure water quality is maintained and that level of service is being maintained. So those are some of the things that are happening within the industry.

Oh, that's, that's great. That's great. Well, the last question I had for you guys, I was going to throw out there was, you know, in your opinion, who, who's got, you know, some of the best AMI technology in this space right now that we, as a, as a consultant would recommend. I mean, I think listeners are going to go.

You know, we're talking all this great platform stuff and these tools, but like, who are these people? We don't know. So tell us, what

do you think? I want to defer to Rick on that question. Well, well, I

think you have to look at the big players, right? The Neptune, the, the the census, the Badger, they've always been there and they're always going to be stable and they're always going to be good products.

But then you also have. Other companies, Camstrap and Diehl and even Metron Fournier and Master Meter, they're kind of, they don't have as big of a slice of the pie, but it's kind of, you know, it's kind of like, do you want to buy a Ford or maybe you want to buy a Rivian, you know, the new, the new truck coming out.

But I think you have to go into the agency and what we do during our feasibility study is we take a look at all the technologies. We'll look at eight to 10 different technologies and determine what the best. You know, maybe the best fit would be for that agency. And you can't just come in and say, and, and the other consulting firms will do this.

They'll say, well, here's a list of them all. This is what we think is the best one. Well, one has cellular a cellular reading capability. And maybe you don't have, we are actually working one with one in Arizona right now. They don't have assets or the height to be able to put up a fixed base system.

You have to have, you know, 70, 80 feet where you can put those towers. Well, they can't do that. So you have to look at other technology. And then you know, also what, what is it you're looking for is what Freddie was going into. Are you, are you interested in the leak detection? Are you interested in the The pressure management there's going to be one vendor right now that's better than another vendor And so, you know, you can always talk about the the big players that like I said the neptune the badger the sensor But you have to you have to look at all of them and see what fits that utility the best and I think that's When you have a relationship with that utility and you're working with them on their business case and their feasibility From the very beginning to the end of the project, you know you or at least till To procurement when you're going to go out to bid for the vendor you learn what they want and what they, what they can handle and, and how to move forward with that.

Sean, one last thing I want to mention in closing here is, you know, from my perspective, and you look at the future, it's, it's about static meters. So there's mechanical meters that moving parts has been traditionally in the industry, but really, you know, a lot of the names, including Mueller are offering, you know, these, these static meters and really the future is a meter of that.

Has the ability to obviously read water consumption, but also temperature, pressure, vibration, whatever it is, and have the ability to have that remote shut off. Really, that's where the feature is. So a lot of the vendors that we interface with have that ability or looking to provide that capability to their clients.

So it's having that product, but then also them having the foresight to start connecting to the smart water platform. So that's really what we look for are the recommendations we make. Is that vendor's ability to, to extend their, their ecosystem to not only just provide that meter or that communication network, but really provide a full turnkey system.

That's going to provide the greatest value to our clients.

Yeah, one last question has come to mind, you know, so if you've got, if you've got a utility who really wants to do this sometimes these utilities are governed by, you know, a municipality or some other government agency that basically says you can only charge this.

much or you can only do this much, you know, how do you, how do you amateurize over a period of time through your calculations? I'm assuming you're doing this, that is going to say, Hey, we're going to add a technology to feed to, you know, your bill to cover these new enhancements. That's going to improve your water quality, your, your usage, yada, yada.

You know, how do we handle that with them? And is that part of this, this exercise with the work we do in our consulting

services? So really that's, that's a new business model that you're talking about. You know, in the past, that entire risk, the entire cost of that system has been put on the shoulders of, of, of the rate payers and customers.

So we are working with some clients that are being mindful of that. And they're also looking at different alternative delivery methods. So for example, performance contracting. Where again, an energy savings company comes in, says, okay, we'll put the entire system for you and you don't pay us until you start realizing the benefits of, of that system.

So, the, the, the utility is really, you know, there's no money out of their pocket. It doesn't impact or CIP. So that's, that's 1 avenue. And then there's another business model that's called manage meter services. So the same thing, a vendor could come in and install all the meters. And basically that the utilities leasing the system at a discounted price, and then there's a network as a service where a vendor would come in, put in up that put up that 2 way communication network or whatever network that they're looking at.

And the maintenance, the operation of that system goes back to the vendor and there's a discounted cost to to the city and utility. So, you know, there's different ways that utilities are looking to minimize that that impact or that cost to to their customers.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So there's a lot to think through.

There's a lot of options here. There's a lot of, you know, players in the market too, that can, you know, provide value or, you know, kind of, you know, control some things that maybe we don't want them to control. There's got to be a hook somewhere on some of that too, that you got to be concerned about. Right.

I would just add one thing to that also to what Freddie was saying is that. If you can, and some agencies are a little reluctant to actually use this, but if you can show the, you know, utility that their payback and they're going to have more accurate meters, they're going to be able to identify water loss.

They may recoup some of those fees. You're not using as much for pumping, for chemicals, for sending out into the system. You're not losing your water as much anymore. Then you don't have to raise rates. Right. You know, there's that possibility also. Right. Yeah. Good.

Well, look guys, I really, I really appreciate you guys coming on the show today.

Lots of really good conversation around AMI and the value of, of deploying this with utilities. I think we could cover more topics on this over time and maybe what we'll do is set us up some more time down the road to come back and maybe talk about some use cases where we've helped utilities.

And I think that'd be good for our listeners to hear how. Things have been implemented. So I really appreciate you coming on the show today, Freddie and Rick. Appreciate

1. Yeah. I had a great job. Thank you, son. You bet. Take care.