August 2023, MARIETTA, GA ~ Located in North Carolina, Rowan County sits roughly halfway between Charlotte and Greensboro, along the I-85 corridor. Salisbury-Rowan Utilities (SRU) was founded in 1886 as the Salisbury Water Company. Over its nearly 140-year history, population levels increased and capacity needs grew, as did the utility’s assets. Today, SRU’s water assets include one water treatment plant treating an average of 9.3 million gallons per day, 2 wastewater facilities and 15 water tanks, for a finished water storage capacity of 7,455,000 gallons. A total of 23,000 water customers in municipalities throughout Rowan County, including the City of Salisbury, as well as the towns of China Grove, Granite Quarry, Rockwell, Spencer and East Spencer, and several unincorporated areas, receive water service from the utility.

In an effort to decrease non-revenue water and improve customer service, the utility completed an in-house meter analysis in 2012, and determined that a meter change-out project was necessary. At the time, the average age of existing meters was 17 years old, with some of the oldest meters in the system in service for nearly 50 years.

Upgrading meter infrastructure allowed the utility to gain more accurate data for employees to respond to customer inquiries about their bills and their usage; and to optimize operations and technological offerings in order to realize more revenue and improve overall sustainability. “The water meter is our cash register, so we want to make sure that meter is as accurate as it can be,” said Jason Wilson, Assistant Utilities Director for Salisbury-Rowan Utilities. “We determined that our meter age needed to be 14 years for us to maximize our accuracy and get the most life out of that meter. And so, at the start of this project, we were roughly 12,000 meters behind on change outs that were necessary to maximize our system efficiency.”

Approximately 85% of the utility’s service area is residential, accounting for about 42% of the average daily billed volume of water. Prior to the meter upgrade project, the utility had seven meter readers working across the service area to compile data on a monthly basis, and change-outs happened as meters neared the end of their service life—about 500 meters annually. When a customer brought in a higher bill, SRU only had the information from the one monthly meter read available.

The city selected ultrasonic meters, cellular endpoints and software from Badger Meter, upgrading to a true smart water solution tailored to their needs. With no moving parts, E-Series G2® Ultrasonic meters offer increased performance to improve reliability and maximize revenue. Paired with ORION® Cellular endpoints and BEACON® Software as a Service (SaaS), utilities can enjoy the benefits of long-term, sustained accuracy, even in low-flow environments.

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