“Water scarcity is an existential threat to all of us. We’re proud of the work we’ve done with our partner Itineris to combat wasteful irrigation practices that lead to depleted aquifers and higher water prices for our customers."
Chelsea Solomon,
Water Utilities Director, Georgetown Utility Systems
About
Georgetown Utility Systems supplies water, wastewater, storm water, electricity, and refuse services to more than 65,000 customers in the city of Georgetown, Texas. The city, located 25 miles north of Austin, adopted Itineris’ UMAX customer information system (CIS) in 2018 and quickly realized a number of billing process efficiencies as a result. But they still had a lingering problem—one shared by many utilities throughout the American South and Southwest: a growing population and a diminishing water supply due to persistent drought conditions.
To lower peak demand, water suppliers like Georgetown maintain watering schedules that restrict customer lawn irrigation to specific days of the week. But those schedules only work if everyone adheres to them, and many homeowners with automatic irrigation systems don't reprogram them to comply. Consequently, Georgetown staff were faced with several time-consuming processes:
- Manually identifying violators
- Drafting and delivering numerous communications
- Continuously answering policy questions
They turned to Itineris for a solution.
Solution
Itineris' Wrong-day Irrigation solution
During the drought season, 99.8% of the city's water resources are consumed, with more than 50% attributed to lawn irrigation (sprinkler systems). To mitigate that consumption, lawn irrigation is restricted to specific days during summer.
The Itineris Wrong-day Irrigation solution, which leverages smart meter data analytics, automatically detects when customers irrigate on the wrong day and instantly sends a courtesy letter to educate them.
If customers do not adjust their behavior within a given timeframe, the UMAX billing system can automatically impose penalties.
Results
The improvements realized after the implementation of our solution were tremendous in terms of
customer behavioral change, staff time savings, and water conservation.
Process
How does it work?
Valuable consumption insights are available to customers in an intuitive, easily accessible format via the self-service portal.
