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Council retroactively authorizes payments and amends maintenance agreement for city smart meters; Green Button Connect clarified
Summary
The council approved staff's recommendation to ratify retroactive maintenance payments and delegate authority for a maintenance amendment with Elster Solutions LLC covering the city's advanced metering infrastructure; staff said the contract does not itself implement Green Button Connect but supports meter communications.
The Santa Clara City Council unanimously approved an item on Aug. 12 delegating authority to the city manager to execute Amendment No. 1 to the system maintenance agreement with Elster Solutions LLC for the city's advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), to negotiate and execute related purchase orders and amendments, and to ratify previous payments that exceeded prior council authorization.
Councilmember Jane pulled the item from the consent calendar to ask about a retroactive payment and whether the meters and supporting software would enable Green Button Connect, a utility data access standard the city has pursued in a separate contract. Jane noted the original master services agreement dated to 2010, the main project outlays were completed by 2015, and that annual software maintenance and licensing payments had continued without a current automated purchasing control in place. Staff acknowledged the 2010 agreement and said the installation contract had been completed (about $7.4 million by 2015) and that annual maintenance and licenses are routine yearly expenses.
Ken Lee, finance director, told the council that the Purchasing Division is implementing a Procurement Contracts module in the city's financial system to better track cumulative contract expenditures; he said the go-live target for that upgrade is early 2026. The item before council authorized staff to resolve a payment shortfall covering service between 2015 and 2025: staff described the retroactive payments being authorized as approximately $375,000 to cover ongoing software maintenance and licensing.
On the specific question of Green Button Connect, City Manager Jovan Brogan said the contract with Elster is for AMI system maintenance and infrastructure; it supports communications between meters and utility systems but is not the Green Button Connect product itself. Staff said a separate contract for Green Button Connect (a Siemens product referenced in recent meetings) was approved at a prior meeting.
A member of the public asked whether the meters support the 15-minute interval reporting required for Green Button Connect; staff responded that the AMI supports necessary communications and affirmed that Green Button Connect implementation is being handled under separate contracting.
Councilmember Jane moved to approve the staff recommendation and the motion passed unanimously.
