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News Release

Benton PUD Builds a Foundation for the Future with Sensus

Washington utility enhances electricity infrastructure and improves customer service

Located in the heart of Washington State’s Tri-Cities—also known as “Washington Wine Country” — Benton Public Utility District (PUD) serves more than 50,000 customers across Kennewick, Finley, Benton City, Prosser and outlying areas. While residents of this “year-round paradise” are known for a sense of fun and adventure, they want their electric utility to be serious about reliable and efficient service.

To proactively address customers’ needs for higher quality service, Benton PUD realized they needed to think bigger about their electricity infrastructure, and that meant upgrading to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) technology. They turned to Sensus, a Xylem brand, for a solution.

Benton PUD deployed the Sensus AMI solution to meet customer demand for efficient and reliable service

As part of their solution the utility wanted a network that would allow for fast communication with electricity meters while also serving as the foundation for future applications. After evaluating AMI solutions, the Benton PUD team determined that the Sensus AMI solution would lay a foundation for future success. One of the biggest factors in the decision was the Sensus FlexNet® communication network, a robust, two-way communication network that offered exactly the right capabilities to meet both current and future needs.

“We wanted to deploy a network that would allow us to improve communication with customers, so AMI made sense,” said Benton PUD Operations Director Steve Hunter. “We also felt the FlexNet system was an extremely reliable network that would allow us to develop more capabilities and extend additional benefits to our customers.”

Benton PUD’s AMI solution also included the Stratus® electricity meter. The utility team believed that the accuracy of the Stratus meter would improve customer service and found the meter’s remote connect/disconnect functionality attractive.

“This AMI solution has enabled us to improve our response time to outages and pinpoint issues we previously would have never detected,” said Hunter.

Since its deployment, the AMI solution has offered great success for Benton PUD and its customers. The FlexNet system has provided the flexibility and security the utility desired.
Benton PUD is able to work more proactively on behalf of its customers by communicating with them and initiating repairs more quickly.

“We know we made the right choice with Sensus because the value of our network has increased over time,” said Hunter.

Read the case study to learn more about Benton PUD’s foundation for the future and benefits to customers.
 

Summary:
  • The Sensus AMI solution met Benton PUD’s needs for a more robust system improving their electricity infrastructure and serving their customers through advanced meter reading capabilities.
  • The advanced functionality of the Stratus meter delivered for the utility and the FlexNet system provided the flexibility and security they desired.
  • Benton PUD enhanced its outage response time and can now pinpoint previously undetected issues.

This AMI solution has enabled us to improve our response time to outages and pinpoint issues we previously would have never detected.

Steve Hunter

Benton PUD Operations Director

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