Large scale roll-out of AMR meters for Anglian Water

Expert engineers and collaborative working deliver an efficient implementation project.

Programme

Anglian Water covers the largest geographical area of any water company in England and Wales, supplying water and water recycling services to more than 7 million customers. The region stretches from the Humber estuary, north of Grimsby, to the Thames estuary, and from Buckinghamshire to Lowestoft on the east coast. Anglian Water runs around a quarter of all water and water recycling treatment works in England and Wales.

In keeping with its technology and environmental focus, Anglian Water is exchanging legacy energy meters for advanced meters with Automated Meter Reading (AMR) capability. This enables consumption data to be collected remotely on a half-hourly basis, creating better opportunities for analytics to optimise energy consumption.

The programme involves the replacement of more than 3,000 legacy electricity meters across the utility’s operational estate. This requires satisfying sometimes stringent access requirements and restrictions, adding complexity to what is a large-scale implementation scheme.

Anglian Water had already enjoyed a positive working relationship with us on meter exchanges and on a private pumping station adoption project, and felt confident that our prior knowledge of its operations would help the programme progress as efficiently as possible. 

Outcome

The meter exchange programme requires more than 3,000 AMR meters be installed by December 2020 without any interruption to operations.

Talks between Anglian Water, us and the electricity supplier SSE Business Energy began in Spring 2018 and by June of that year, the project had been agreed and the first meters installed.

By October 2019, more than 1,700 meters had been exchanged by our engineers, who were required to accommodate operational restrictions and some major weather disturbances. The company’s upskilling of its dedicated project engineers also enabled over half of the exchanges to be completed unaccompanied by Anglian Water’s technicians, which helped optimise cost effectiveness and time resources.

As a result, the project is well on track to be completed by the December 2020 deadline.

The success of the programme to date has been attributed to the expertise of our people, including Scott Brandon from the Power Planning Team, their close attention to detail – and the strong relationships established with Anglian Water and SSE Business Energy. Regular planning and operational conference calls are held with all stakeholders to share the latest information and ensure smooth progression.