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Client Name: City of Santa Ana I AMI FEASIBILITY REPORT <br />Approximately 37,739 meters will be replaced (at an approximate cost of $11 million plus <br />installation costs) in this project and remaining meters will be fitted with MTUs, These meters will <br />be replaced at the end of their life cycle whether AMI is implemented or not, hence meter <br />replacement cost should be viewed as unavoidable while looking at the total cost of ownership. <br />Also, the cost of AMI system 0&M and field services would still be there even if AMI is not <br />implemented (it might be even more in the absence of AMI). The above points should be taken in <br />consideration while evaluating overall cost of the AMI project. <br />10.1.2 Project Benefits <br />Similar to other projects, a major goal of an AMI implementation is to offset some or all of the <br />project costs with yearly costs savings as a result of implementing the project. The main benefits of <br />an AMI implementation are derived through automation of manual meter reading process, <br />improvement in meter accuracy and billing. Black & Veatch has broken down the business benefits <br />into four key areas of the business: <br />1. Meter Reading -The cost savings derived in the meter reading department come from the <br />following three main areas: <br />a. Reduced labor costs due to the reduction of meter reading personnel and assigning <br />them to new roles in the organization. <br />b. Reduced capital costs due to a reduction of fleet vehicles for meter reading <br />personnel. <br />c. Reduced capital costs and 0&M to maintain the hardware and software used to <br />manually read the meters. <br />d. Elimination of the need to add additional meter reading resources to support full <br />monthly meter reading and billing for all water customers. <br />2. Meter Operations -There will be both short-term and long-term costs savings for the meter <br />operations department as follows: <br />a. The City should expect a small revenue stream from recycling of the meters through <br />the AMI meter roll-out, which will partially offset costs. <br />b. The major cost savings for the meter operations department will come from <br />reduced truck rolls. There will be reduction in field visits as daily reads will be <br />available from the system and on demand reads can be acquired remotely in case of <br />billing complaints or for other uses like move -in or move -out reads. <br />3. Billing Efficiency -The costs savings for the billing department are derived from the fact <br />that an AMI solution will provide more accurate and timely reads available to the billing <br />system on a constant basis. The costs savings are made up of the following: <br />a. Reduced overhead costs by having to work fewer billing exceptions. <br />b. Reduction in the number of rebills due to having more accurate readings and the <br />reduction/elimination of bills based on estimated reads. <br />c. Reductions in customer service representative (CSR) call handling and processing. <br />BLACK & VEATCH I Cost/Benefit Analysis <br />25G-165 <br />47 <br />