Page 197 - Water Loss Control

CHAPTER 12

Controlling Apparent

Losses—Customer

Meter Inaccuracy

George Kunkel, P.E.
Julian Thornton

Reinhard Sturm

12.1 Customer Meter Function and Accuracy
Metering production flows and customer consumption is standard practice in many
water utilities throughout the world. Even in countries where metering is not univer-
sal, such as the United Kingdom, there is a strengthening movement to make customer
metering standard practice. The role of metered data is also increasing due to improved
technology to record, communicate, and archive the data. While customer meters con-
tinuously register water flowing through them, meter readings are traditionally gath-
ered on a periodic basis to determine water consumption over a 30- or 90-day period
for billing purposes. Rapidly developing technologies are now being used in many
systems to gather customer-metered data more frequently, or continuously, via data-
logging systems or fixed network automatic meter reading (AMR) systems. In fixed
network AMR systems, customer consumption can be recorded every few minutes,
giving the water utility a detailed profile of the consumption variation throughout the
day. Such granular data can be used to indicate leakage in customer premises, to
develop water consumption profiles to assist hydraulic modeling calibration and a
number of other operational purposes. Given these multiple uses of customer-metered
data, in addition to its fundamental purpose of generating accurate water bills, it is
critical that the meter population be maintained at a high level of functionality and
accuracy.
Managing a large population of customer meters requires knowledge of meter and
meter reading equipment as well as billing policies and customer relations. Policy and
procedures regarding the sizing and installation of customer meters also play a role in

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