A $30 million investment in automatic meter reading technology will dramatically cut labor costs for meter reading in the years ahead in The Villages.
The North Sumter County Utility Dependent District has voted to proceed with the AMR technology in what would be a dramatic technological leap forward in the reading of water meters in the bulk of The Villages.
NSCUDD would be working with longtime partner Jacobs in the implementation of the technology.
Today, meter readers drive around in the familiar blue Jacobs golf carts and use wand-touch technology to manually read meters at each and every home. The new drive-by technology would use a panel on a vehicle that would travel through neighborhoods and automatically read meters.
“It’s significantly more advanced than what we are using today. It’s 85 percent faster,” said Assistant District Manager Bruce Brown.
NSCUDD Director Dan Warren, who worked for many years in a water district in Wisconsin before moving to The Villages said the technology would be akin to moving out of “the Dark Ages.” He said his water district in Wisconsin was one of the first in the nation to use AMR technology.
A huge savings would be a dramatic reduction in the labor force, by up to 70 to 80 percent.
South of State Road 44, the Developer has already invested in automatic meter reading technology that would be compatible with the system chosen by NSCUDD.
