Background

In the late 1990s, Sunnyslope began implementing Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology and applying it to our individual water meters. With this technology, Sunnyslope staff could simply drive by a meter with a special radio transmitter/receiver that would prompt it to send the meter reading. While this drastically increased meter reading efficiency over manual reading, the meters were still only read monthly. As metering technology has improved, Sunnyslope has again transitioned to now use Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). This utilizes a network of permanent radio receivers/transmitters spread throughout Sunnyslope's service area to continuously take reads from all the water meters. 

Improved Customer Access

The AMI  meter reading allows for automatic hourly updates on the individual Customer Portal pages to give customers better accessability. Sunnyslope also implements WaterSmart which provides various types of analysis of customer's water usage such as leak detection, high water use, graphs of individual water use patterns and trends, and comparisons with similar customer types. The system can provide automatic notifications of suspected leaks within a day of the leak's start so that it can be repaired before causing major damage or an excessive bill. 

Replacement of Old Meters

As part of fully implementing the new AMI system, Sunnyslope has to replace about 2,000 older water meters that cannot be reprogrammed for AMI operation. We anticipate that all these meters will be replaced by the end of 2026. 

See the project below for more information about Meter Replacements.