Newport News Waterworks to begin installation of smart meters on the Peninsula
New water meters are coming to the Peninsula, and they won’t require someone to come out to read the meter anymore.
Newport News Waterworks will begin installing smart meters Monday in the City Center area of Newport News and upper York County. The project is expected to take about 2 1/4 u00bd years for crews to upgrade more than 130,000 existing meters in Newport News, Hampton, Poquoson, York County and part of James City County.
“Smart meters reduce the number of trucks on the roadway and the department’s carbon footprint, while eliminating monthly visits from meter readers. This full deployment of smart meters is an infrastructure improvement that will speed up issue resolution and identify problems in our system sooner for the benefit of our customers,” said Yann Le Gouellec, director of Newport News Waterworks.
The smart meters “help conserve water and ensure a better water future” by working with customers to reduce their water usage. The new system will help Waterworks identify unusually high usage incidents and they may be able to alert customers before the bill is sent.
Waterworks says the people could see their water bill increase because older mechanical meters aren’t always accurate. The department says for customers who see an increase and haven’t changed their water usage patterns it’s likely the old meter was slow or there is a minor leak that didn’t register.
The new meters will be tested before they’re installed and the radio device will be able to check them regularly for accuracy.
Newport News Waterworks owns the meters. The upgrade is mandatory and is being performed at no additional cost to the customers.
In 2013, Waterworks stopped its periodic meter replacement program, so as installation of the new meters begins, more than half of the meters have already met their “useful life expectancy,” the department said.
Technicians from Utilities Partners of America will be replacing approximately 4,200 meters a month. The replacement does require stopping the water for about 20 minutes, but the installers will not be digging up streets or going inside homes.
Utilities Partners of America will be notifying customers 30 days before the work is scheduled for their meters.
More information about the project is available online at www.nnva.gov/2212 or by calling the UPA project hotline at 757-304-3291.
Jessica Nolte, 757-912-1675, jnolte@dailypress.com
