Delivering AMI to address Greer Commission Water Utility Growth

Background

For over 110 years, Greer CPW has been the lifeblood of the Greer, South Carolina community, providing the essentials like water, power, and gas that families and businesses need to thrive. Serving 90,000+ customers, Greer had rapidly expanded into one of South Carolina’s fastest-growing cities as major corporations like BMW moved. This had seen the population swell by 8.57% annually. Due to rapid growth, Greer Commission of Public Works was facing severe water infrastructure challenges. 

The challenge

After decades of reliable service, Greer CPW’s water infrastructure was at a crossroads. Rising demand strained aging pipes and meters alike, threatening to outpace Greer’s rapid growth. They needed to revolutionize water management to deliver better customer experiences through advanced metering infrastructure. With demand going through the roof, Greer CPW knew it needed to step up its game. The tried-and-true way of operating wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Greer was growing by leaps and bounds, and Greer CPW was determined to rise along with it. 

The solution

While the urgency for better metering infrastructure was apparent, the solution only revealed itself slowly. The answer would be to migrate to an advanced metering infrastructure with automatic meter reading. Searching for a solution equal to the moment, Greer CPW explored cutting-edge automated metering systems capable of propelling operations into the 21st century.

Fortiline sang the praises of Kamstrup’s innovative ultrasonic smart metering technology. Intrigued by the smart meters’ robust accuracy and efficient remote readings, Greer CPW took a leap of faith. They deciding to replace all 23,000 antiquated water meters across the region—a process that began in 2023.

Through Fortiline’s application of the AMI solution, it was expected that Greer would be able to anticipate future needs before they arose and empower customers by giving them access to water usage data and the transparency they deserved.

Key results

The Fortiline Smart Utilitiy team got to work implementing Kamstrup’s AMI system which has proven visionary, providing a wealth of granular data to optimize every drop. Readings come in every three hours, filling in the gaps hour-by-hour to create an expansive view of real-time usage. This abundance of information gets translated into billing dollars and cents, empowering customers to truly understand their own water consumption patterns.

Implementing Kamstrup AMI meters has already begun to pay off. The integration enables existing billing systems to harness this data, setting up Greer for simpler and more effective water management today and well into the future. “Our goal has been to provide a lot more data not only to ourselves but also for our customers, and that required us to look at an AMI system.” said Paul Peach, IT Manager, Greer CPW.

Thanks to Fortiline’s installation of Kamstrup water meters, Greer CPW has been able not only to maintain but elevate its high standards for customer service and efficiency. And as meters continue to be installed and more data flows in, they can look forward to even more impressive results.