Claremore council approves sole-source purchase of Trilliant AMI hardware to bolster meter network

Claremore City Council approved sole-source procurement of Trilliant Networks meters and network equipment to stabilize and harden the city's automated meter infrastructure (AMI) after the utility separated from a prior vendor contract.

A city presenter identified in the meeting as Mr. White said the city ended its contract with General Electric and that Trilliant is the only supplier for certain Trilliant-branded meters and gateways. "There are no other vendors. That is the only place to get it," he said, urging council approval of a sole-source procurement and the purchase of spare devices to keep in inventory because typical lead times can be 90 days.

Mr. White said the planned purchases include additional gateways (the city will add two so that three are deployed operationally and at least one is held in reserve), meters and other network components aimed at improving redundancy and read rates across the electric and water meter fleet. He described the move as necessary because the former vendor no longer supplies replacements and the city needs on-hand parts to avoid estimated or manual reads when a bridge or gateway fails.

The council moved to authorize the procurement as a sole-source purchase and approved the related AMI hardware purchase in separate items. The meeting record shows a roll-call in support of the actions.

The staff presentation did not include a contract dollar amount in the public remarks; Mr. White said only that the equipment is "not inexpensive" and that stocking components is needed to avoid long outages while awaiting shipments.