Schneider Electric told the Groves City Council on Nov. 24 that the company can replace the city’s meters with ultrasonic AMI (advanced metering infrastructure) devices designed to reduce non-revenue water and speed leak detection. Craig Messamrich, Schneider’s program manager, described a turnkey design-and-build approach and said the city would have a single point of accountability for engineering, construction and system integration.

The presentation said the plan would replace about 6,700 meters, provide two kinds of leak detection (meter low-flow alarms and acoustic pipe listening on the city side), offer an end-user customer portal with near-real-time usage alerts, and include an endpoint storage capability that the presenters said could retain meter data on the device for about 460 days. Schneider presented a warranty profile that the presenters said covers meter accuracy and cited a manufacturer 20-year warranty on the meters.

Schneider and city staff said the project’s financial case rests on three revenue drivers: improved meter accuracy, leak-detection revenue recovery and efficiency savings. The consultant’s slides and remarks estimated combined annual benefits of roughly $667,000 and presented a 20-year cumulative benefit figure cited during the briefing of about $20 million. The total project price presented to council was described as "just under $5,700,000." The vendor estimated a pilot and then a full replacement pace of roughly 400–500 meter changeouts per week once construction begins.

Council and staff raised operational questions throughout the presentation. City staff asked who would receive and process AMI alerts; Schneider said alarm thresholds (for example, yellow vs. red events) can be tuned so lower-level alerts are handled by existing staff via phone or logged contact while higher-level events would trigger field callouts. On cybersecurity and data ownership, Schneider said it would warranty the system for the first year and then transfer the software license to the city; after transfer, Schneider said the city would be responsible for cybersecurity of data flowing from the vendor cloud to city systems.

Presenters compared meter vendors and recommended a meter with very low-flow detection and long endpoint storage. They described two leak detection layers: customer-side triggers that notify end users the same or next day, and acoustic detection that forms a systemwide listening matrix to help find leaks on the city’s pipe network. In response to a council question about a resident-paid shutoff option, Schneider said a separate customer-side shutoff box could be offered at a fixed additional price and would be the resident’s maintenance responsibility after the vendor’s standard one-year installation warranty.

The council did not record a final vote on the Schneider contract in the transcript of this meeting. City staff said the project is consistent with the five-year rate study underway and that revenue increases from that plan were anticipated to fund meter replacement and related capital work. The council asked staff to continue negotiating contract language and to return with financing details in subsequent agenda items.

Next steps: staff will continue contract negotiations, coordinate pilot timing and refine operational procedures (alarm thresholds, staffing implications and cybersecurity handoff) before bringing a final contract or financing recommendation back to the council.