CASE STUDY: Burbank Water & Power

Burbank Water & Power Boosts Service Streamlining Operations with eMeter
PROFILE
Burbank Water & Power burbankwaterandpower. com Type: Municipal Total Meters: 88,000 Electric Meters: 50,000 Water Meters: 38,000 Electric Interval: 15 min. Water Interval: 60 min.

Southern California public utility addresses current and future requirements with advanced meter data management system capabilities How Burbank Water & Power Increased Efficiency
Burbank Water and Power (BWP) needed the ability to handle large amounts of meter data from their new Smart Meters. By using the eMeter EnergyIP meter data management software platform and applications, the public utility and its customers now have access to granular consumption data. This ensures that both the utility and customers are able to make better decisions about energy and water consumption, and ultimately conserve resources. With better meter data management, the utility has also been able to: Have access to granular customer consumption data. Help customers understand their water and energy consumption. Provide self-help access to detailed consumption data. Craft customer programs to help customers manage their water and energy consumption. Gain operational efficiencies and staff reductions. through process improvements

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The eMeter EnergyIP solution has all the flexibility we need. The platform is a system we can grow withand will grow with us.
Teri Kaczmarek,
Manager of Customer Service Operations, Burbank Water & Power

FAST FACTS
Began providing services in 1913. BWP oversees meters for NBC, Disney, and Warner Brothers. Oversees 88,000 electricity and water meters.

Like their counterparts in the private sector, municipal utilities face increasing pressure for greater operational efficiency. This requires serving customers quickly and accurately, but public utilities have the added challenge of conserving limited resources whenever possible. Forward-thinking utilities recognize that increased operational efficiency also calls for laying the groundwork for future capabilities long before customer demand arises. Burbank Water and Power (BWP) is one of these forward-thinking municipal utilities. It began providing water and electricity to Burbank residents in 1913, just two years after the citys incorporation. The utility currently oversees 88,000 electricity and water meters for both residential and commercial customerswhich include household names such as NBC, Disney, and Warner Brothers. While BWP currently provides 99.9999% reliability for its water and electrical services, utility executives recently began to examine the need to deploy a 21stcentury meter data management system (MDMS) to address current and future operational challenges. Utility decision makers sought a system that would improve responsiveness to customers, provide more usage metrics through remote reading capabilities, and reduce staffing costs. They also wanted a system that would help BWP lay the foundation for future smart grid capabilities, such as remote connect and disconnect, and a customer portal for tracking ongoing usage. Additionally, any system chosen also had to seamlessly integrate with the utilitys existing customer information system (CIS)but improve validation capabilities, says Teri Kaczmarek, the utilitys manager of customer service operations. Until recently, our CIS only provided us with very basic high and low validation checks that didnt give us the usage insight we needed, she says.

CASE STUDY: Burbank Water & Power

if they see that water or energy usage is significantly higher, they can alert customers and suggest that they examine behavior patterns
Teri Kaczmarek, Manager of Customer Service Operations, Burbank Water & Power

Pilot Program Validates EnergyIP Software Capabilities

To streamline current and future operational challenges, the utility chose eMeter EnergyIP software over other competing solutions for use in the pilot program of a smart metering project. The eMeter solution offered BWP improved operational efficiency, enhanced customer service, and better conservation capabilities. Additionally, the solutions service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach allowed the utility to retain its existing CIS infrastructure. BWP derived these benefits with the first phase of its eMeter rollout, which was rapid, nondisruptive, and quickly adopted by utility staff:

Increased Billing Granularity.

eMeter EnergyIP software provides configurable validation, estimation, and editing (VEE) capabilities. Previously, BWPs CIS system indicated only high and low thresholds of usage throughout the day. The eMeter EnergyIP software lets BWP track both electrical and water usage at designated intervals. Commercial electrical usage is tracked every 5 minutes, while residential electric usage is monitored every 15 minutes. Water usage is now tracked hourly. BWP staff now uses this usage information to get a better sense of how many resources customers are usingand when these resources are being used. This lets BWP better calculate energy and water resource requirements during certain hours, as well as accurately categorize its user base by small, medium, or high usage. We can now get very specific about usage parameters with the VEE that eMeter provides, says Kaczmarek. That makes a big difference in a municipality that charges for water and energy usage on a tiered basis.

THE EMETER SOLUTION OFFERED BWP:

Improved operational efficiency. Enhanced customer service. Better conservation capabilities.

Enhanced Services.
Because its customer service staff is spending less time dealing with billing inquiries, BWP can devote more efforts to ensuring faster service transfers for new customers. If someone forgot to schedule service and called on the day theyre moving in, our manual workload made it almost impossible to accommodate them, says Kaczmarek. But now we can take the time to see if we can get their service connected faster.

Better Water & Energy Conservation.

Highly granular data also lets BWP look more closely at usage and be more proactive about problems. Our billing representatives can now look at a bill in progress, and if they see that water or energy usage is significantly higher, they can alert customers and suggest that they examine behavior patterns or inspect for possible water leaks, says Kaczmarek. Sometimes there can be underground water leaks that a customer might not notice for a month or two.

CASE STUDY: Burbank Water & Power

BWP will deploy a service portal that will enable customers to track their resource usage on their own computers

Foundation for a More Resourceful Future.

eMeter EnergyIP has also laid a foundation for future capabilities, which was a key reason for selecting the solution, says Kaczmarek. The eMeter EnergyIP solution had a lot more flexibility. We saw they were looking at a lot more visionary processes, including integrating different systems in the future. It was a system that we could grow with and one that would grow with us. The subsequent phases of the project will include:

Phase 2: Remote Disconnect & Outage Management Integration

During this phase, BWP will deploy remote connect and disconnect capabilities. It will still maintain a core group of technicians, because some customers still require what is known as a hard disconnect. In Phase 2 of the eMeter EnergyIP deployment, the widespread deployment of smart meters will give BWP representatives a clearer sense of why customers might be calling. The utility will be able to determine-without taking the time to check with a service technician-whether an outage relates to a widespread occurrence or a customers service being turned off. From that standpoint alone, says Kaczmarek, it will both reduce the time spent on the phone and improve our customer service.

Phase 3: Customer Portal, Demand Management, & Electric Vehicles.

In this final phase, BWP will deploy a web portal that will enable customers to track their resource usage. With the anticipated increase in plug-in vehicles, BWP plans to ensure that consumers can easily see their overall electrical consumption. In its quest to better serve both BWP is already seeing both internal and external benefits through its deployment of eMeterEnergyIP software. The public utility is laying the foundation for a future in which it can respond quickly to customer needs and usage trends, and ensure that its energy resources are used wisely.

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