City Committee to Hear Reports on New Pasadena Water and Power Metering System on Tuesday

The Pasadena City Council’s Municipal Services Committee will receive updates on the new Pasadena Water and Power metering system and Customer Information System during its regular meeting Tuesday, December 13, starting at 4 p.m.

PWP will also report on the status of the GT-5 Repowering Project which is slated for final completion on December 18.

The City’s Public Works Department will also report on the implementation of its Sidewalk Improvement Reimbursement Program.

On PWP’s metering project, the utility plans to install a more powerful Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system to replace the current AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) system being used by about 92 percent of PWP’s water and electricity installations.

AMR systems are fairly recent systems that replaced analog or electromechanical meters starting in 2003, but PWP says they have limited functionality and flexibility and cannot be programmed to perform diagnostics remotely like the new AMI can.

With AMR systems in place, PWP staff and the customer can have access to real-time consumption data without having to be on site, and even starting or disconnecting the service can be controlled remotely.

PWP plans to form a functional review project team to include engineering, technology, operations, finance, metering, customer service and customer relations early in 2017 to begin the planning of a transition to AMI.

Coupled with the metering system update, PWP also plans to upgrade its Customer Information System which will adapt to the new water and power metering system and other primary systems now in use.

In an Agenda Report for Tuesday’s meeting, PWP said replacing the current CIS has to follow an upgrade in the utility’s financial management system which the City has started to upgrade by replacing PWP’s HR/Payroll System, collectively known as the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project.

PWP Interim General Manager Gurcharan Bawa is also expected to present a status report on the GT-5 Repowering Project at Glenarm.

“The GT-5 gas turbine construction is complete and is in the final stages of testing,” Bawa said in an Agenda Report. “Air emissions, noise, performance and demonstration testing have been completed. All preliminary results for the testing are satisfactory, and the unit is currently undergoing the seven-day reliability test.”

The target date for commercial operation of the plant is on Sunday, December 18.

Also at the Municipal Services Committee meeting, the City’s Department of Public Works will give an update on the new Citywide Sidewalk Improvement Program approved by the committee in April 2015 to address the estimated 1.1 million square feet of damaged sidewalk throughout the City.

The fiscal year 2016 phase of the project aims to repair approximately 87,000 square feet of sidewalk and is to be completed within the month. For fiscal year 2017, the City plans to repair 74,000 square feet of damaged sidewalk. Total estimated cost of repair for the whole project is $17 million.

Under Section 12.04 of the Pasadena Municipal Code, repair of damaged sidewalk is the responsibility of the adjacent property owner. Property owners, according to the Code, may hire a contractor to repair the damage, or pay funds to the City to include the repair in one of the City’s annual concrete repair contracts.

Between July 2013 and June 2015, the City implemented a Pilot Sidewalk Repair Partnership Program where the City matched 50 percent of the cost of the repair, up to 70 percent for income-qualified residents.

Public Works Director Ara Maloyan will explain procedures by which residents can use qualified contractors to qualify for reimbursements at the Municipal Services Committee meeting.

The committee meets at the Council Chambers at the Pasadena City Hall.