Park City Uses Sensus Smart Gateway To Extend Monitoring Reach

Park City is one of the most popular tourist areas in the United States. Beyond being a popular ski destination, every January thousands of movie fans flock to the city to check out the best independent cinema has to offer at the Sundance Film Festival. For the city’s water utility, providing effective water service for both residents and tourists can be a major production.

“While the added connectivity enhances operational performance, it will also help us get smarter as a utility”

“We have about 8,000 residents in Park City, but it’s more like 30,000 with tourism factored in and it can be much higher when big events come to town,” said Park City Water Resources Manager Jason Christensen. “We’re constantly punching above our weight in terms of water services.”

To extend the benefits of its Sensus advanced metering infrastructure(AMI), Park City decided it was time to look deeper into its water distribution data. Christensen and his team sought an affordable solution that could combat water loss and help the city proactively respond to issues with water pressure and flow.

Park City wanted to extend its water pressure and flow monitoring to remote sites that had no power or land-based communications. The city’s water team conducted a pilot program with the battery-powered Sensus Smart Gateway Sensor Interface at two pressure reducing valve (PRV) sites. Soon after deployment, the city’s customer service team noticed an issue when the distribution pressure downstream of one of the PRVs began to spike.

“The alarm went off and you could see the failure happening in real-time,” said Christensen. “The issue was resolved without incident, but it was a lesson for us in just how impactful the system could be.”

In addition to helping staff respond quickly to issues, the Sensus Smart Gateway solution increases the city’s level of service. Park City is planning to extend to 24 more sites in the coming months.

“While the added connectivity enhances operational performance, it will also help us get smarter as a utility,” said Christensen. “As we monitor more sites, we’ll be able to store the data and use it as a resource for ongoing asset management and water loss reduction.”

Sensus helps a wide range of public service providers—from utilities to cities to industrial complexes and campuses—do more with their infrastructure to improve quality of life in their communities. We enable our customers to reach farther through the application of technology and data-driven insights that deliver efficiency and responsiveness. We partner with them to anticipate and respond to evolving business needs with innovation in sensing and communications technologies, data analytics and services. Learn more at sensus.com and follow @SensusGlobal on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology company committed to developing innovative technology solutions to the world’s water challenges. The Company’s products and services move, treat, analyze, monitor and return water to the environment in public utility, industrial, residential and commercial building services settings. Xylem also provides a leading portfolio of smart metering, network technologies and advanced infrastructure analytics solutions for water, electric and gas utilities. The Company’s approximately 17,000 employees bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on identifying comprehensive, sustainable solutions. Headquartered in Rye Brook, New York, with 2018 revenue of $5.2 billion, Xylem does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands.

The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all – that which occurs in nature.