Title
Discuss and consider action to authorize the City Manager to approve the procurement of construction services for the Automated Meter Infrastructure (AMI) project to Core and Main using their HGACBuy contract in the amount of $2,664,127.05.
Summary
As part of the City’s 5-year CIP, our water meter infrastructure was identified to be upgraded to an Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) network from our existing Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system. The objective of the project is to improve the accuracy of our current meters, add infrastructure to bring water use data into a single system, and to provide City of Pflugerville water customers with a portal to be able to see their water usage in real-time.
The current AMR network requires staff to drive around to gather meter readings in specified zones on specific days of the month. This also requires staff to individually go to specific streets depending on the signal capability of the older registers and meter boxes. This existing network also requires Meter Shop staff to respond to Utility Billing and customer requests for verifying readings as needed. This network also doesn’t give customers a lot of control over their usage and being able to see how much water they use on a given day to try and tailor their usage.
The proposed AMI network would require the installation of network data collectors at our elevated storage tanks as well as various stand-alone stations within the City in order to cover roughly 99% of the City’s water customers. These collectors would be taking meter data from the meters and bringing it into the City’s network utilizing the wireless network that should be completed by the end of June 2021. Once this data is brought into the City’s network, the City will use Neptune’s hosting service for this data to minimize the server and data storage needs that the City would need to have on-site. There are numerous vendors that provide a customer and staff portal to use this data for both water usage statistics, setting alarm points for both customers and staff, and also notifying customers of issues quickly that are flagged with their water use. This portal will be brought forth in a future Council agenda item as staff evaluates the different products while also allowing staff time to weigh in on what best fits the needs of the AMI network and our water customers.
City staff is proposing to transition to AMI using the manufacturer of existing City meters, Neptune, due to both the cost implications of moving to a different product and because we have had a very successful partnership with Neptune for years without any issues. By switching to a different manufacturer, we would need to change both the meter body and meter register of all of our meter network which would have been prohibitively expensive. With 45% of our existing meter registers currently AMI-capable Neptune units, it makes economic sense to stay with Neptune instead of switching the entirety of the system out to another manufacturer. The cost to switch to another manufacturer can range from $7,000,000 on the low-end conversion to $12,000,000 on the high-end to change to a different meter manufacturer. Neptune has specified distributors in areas around the country that are authorized to sell their products and also work with their infrastructure to install AMI collectors for the network. The sole distributor for Neptune in the Central Texas Region is Core and Main who the City has worked extensively with for year with both Neptune products as well as other water and wastewater supply products. Core and Main was able to provide pricing through their HGACBuy contract which has already been competitively bid and awarded as part of that purchasing cooperative to guarantee the best price. This contract would finish construction of the various data collectors throughout the City and would also cover installation for the majority of the registers to be compatible with the AMI network, but staff would need to return to Council in FY2022 to complete the remainder of the register installations that would amount to another $500,000 of AMI registers to complete the entire water system. This current phase would have a 6-month construction timeline after the contractor receives the Notice to Proceed.
Prior City Council Action
NA
Deadline for City Council Action
5/25/2021
Funding Expected: Revenue __ Expenditure _X_ N/A __
Budgeted Item: Yes __ No __ N/A _X_
*This portion of the Capital Improvement Project is funded by Utility Bond funds.
Amount: __$2,664,127.05______
1295 Form Required? Yes _X_ No __
Legal Review Required: N/A __ Required _X_ Date Completed: ___________
Supporting documents attached:
Short Form Contract - Executed, Bidding Documents, HGAC Contract - Core and Main, Propagation Study 2021, FY2021 Bid - Core and Main
Recommended Action
City staff requests authorizing the City Manager to approve the procurement of construction services for the Automated Meter Infrastructure (AMI) project to Core and Main using their HGACBuy contract in the amount of $2,664,127.05.