Pasadena Water and Power Offers Pilot Program for Home Watering That Uses Very Sophisticated Technology

Pasadena Water and Power has implemented a new program that will give customers cutting-edge technology to see if it can reduce their water consumption and help save them money.

Qualified participants of the Smart Controller Direct Instillation Pilot Program will have the opportunity to get a free smart controller installed, which is a device used to tailor a home’s watering system for optimal settings by collecting climate data, according to a memo released by Gurcharan Bawa, PWP’s Interim General Manager.

The goal of the preliminary program is to test the controller’s effectiveness and the potential for it to be implemented citywide, according to the memo.

The smart controller will collect information — such as temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, wind and humidity — from local weather stations and combine it with customer-inputted data about their own property to establish a customized watering cycle. According to the memo, the goal of putting together this data is to find out how much water each specific landscape requires and cut the unnecessary consumption that exceeds that amount.

The state-of-art technology also allows the city to measure how much water is being used in real time and compare it to previous months and years, according to the memo. Furthermore, it lets customers change their watering routine remotely at any time and provides them with detailed reports of their water use.

Pasadena Water and Power will work with those selected for the program for a year to determine its benefits.

To be eligible, residents must meet specific criteria, such as being a customer whose water usage exceeds 200 gallons per day and have property that is more than 50 percent turf, according to the memo.

To learn more about the Smart Controller Direct Installation Pilot Program, email Pasadena Water and Power at water@cityofpasadena.net or call 626-744-7926.