Agenda Report
Fullerton City Council
MEETING DATE: April 18, 2023
TO: CITY COUNCIL / SUCCESSOR AGENCY
SUBMITTED BY: STEPHEN BISE, CITY ENGINEER / ASSISTANT PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR PREPARED BY: yvette hanna, Principal Civil Engineer
SUBJECT: METER HEALTH ANALYTICS PILOT PROJECT GRANT FROM METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
SUMMARY
Accept $50,000 grant award from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) under the 2022 Innovative Conservation Program (ICP) to provide funding for a pilot project that diagnoses large meter health. Metropolitan and the Southern California Gas Company funded the grant award through ICP.
RECOMMENDATION
Accept and appropriate receipt and use of $50,000 2022 Innovative Conservation Program grant award of in the Water Fund (Fund 44) for the Meter Health Analytics Pilot Project (Project 53628).
Authorize City Manager, Public Works Director, or designee to enter into an Agreement with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) in a form approved by the City Attorney.
Authorize City Manager, Public Works Director or designee to enter into an Agreement with Olea Networks Inc. DBA Olea Edge Analytics (Olea), in a form approved by the City Attorney.
Authorize Public Works Director, or designee, to approve any future amendments and/or supplements with Metropolitan or Olea, in a form approved by the City Attorney.
CITY MANAGER REMARKS
The City Manager recommends approval of acceptance of the grant.
PRIORITY POLICY STATEMENT
This item matches the following Priority Policy Statement:
Infrastructure and City Assets.
FISCAL IMPACT
This item has no fiscal impact to the City. Metropolitan’s 2022 Innovative Conservation Program Grant provides funding for this project.
The $50,000 grant award by Metropolitan will reimburse 100% of eligible project activities including reporting and administration costs.
DISCUSSION
California faces extreme weather from record dry periods to intense storms. Metropolitan and local water agencies are taking extraordinary efforts to prepare for climate change impacts and strengthen the region’s water resiliency.
Metropolitan has implemented the Innovative Conservation Program since 2001, sponsoring pilot and demonstration projects for innovative water savings devices, technologies and strategies. The 2022 ICP would competitively award $275,000, subject to availability. Each proposal may request up to $50,000 in funding for projects completed before June 2024. The Southern California Gas Company co-sponsored the 2022 ICP.
ICP provides funding to promote pilot and demonstration projects that evaluate the water savings potential and reliability of innovative water savings devices, technologies and strategies. The 2022 ICP focuses on project applications in the commercial, institutional and industrial (CII) sector.
The City of Fullerton explored new technology and approaches to improve and/or augment the ongoing water meter asset management program. Staff applied for Metropolitan’s 2022 ICP Grant Program on December 8, 2022 for the City of Fullerton Meter Health Analytics Pilot Project. Olea Edge Analytics has developed a new approach to monitoring large water meters called Meter Health Analytics (MHA) which enables utilities to monitor the performance and accuracy of water meters in a simple way with minimum manpower requirements. MHA consists of a passive sensor array and an edge computer installed on the outside of a water meter. The sensors gather data which artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms analyze to identify inaccurate and poorly operating water meters. The analysis provides the specific cause(s) of failure and specific recommendation(s) to repair the meter. Olea provides the MHA solution in a turnkey service that enables utilities to focus on repairing and maintaining assets without the burden of installing and maintaining a sensor and edge computing network, collecting and analyzing data, identifying broken meters or determining the right corrective action. MHA allows utilities to identify broken and poorly performing water meters faster and easier than traditional approaches to meter asset management.
The pilot project utilizes new AI-based edge technology to diagnose underperforming large meters. The project scope will entail installation of MHA devices on 50 of the City’s largest water meters (three inches or larger) serving commercial and industrial customers. These devices or sensors will perform diagnostics to monitor health and performance of each meter and make recommendations for repairs, enabling the city to reduce or eliminate revenue and water loss due to inaccurate meters.
Metropolitan notified staff on February 1, 2023 that it will award $50,000 for the “City of Fullerton Meter Health Analytics Pilot Project” via a sub-award agreement with Metropolitan. The City will execute an agreement with Metropolitan to receive funding. The Grant requires all projects completed before May 30, 2024.
Staff recommends the City enter into an agreement with Olea Networks Inc. DBA Olea Edge Analytics (Olea) for execution of project tasks. The anticipated activities by Olea include installation of sensors and/or devices on 50 large water meters which will perform diagnostics to monitor heath and performance of each meter, collecting data on cloud-based platform, providing staff training and access to a dashboard to monitor data collected, develop repair recommendations for meters and prepare a report that includes findings, validation of completed repairs and calculations for estimates of the additional water measured due to the repairs.
Olea Technology is a patent protected one-of-a-kind solution combined with Olea’s proprietary software systems result in Olea Technology offering many unique features not available from any other supplier.
Attachments:
Attachment 1 – Agreement with Metropolitan
Attachment 2 – Agreement with Olea
cc: City Manager Eric J. Levitt
Meter Health Analytics Pilot Project Grant
April 18, 2023 - Page 2