DAPA Utilities Modernizes Water Management Capabilities With Elster Smart Meters and AMR Technology in Mexico

SAN DIEGO, Calif., Feb. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Elster (NYSE: ELT) announced today that Direccion de Agua Potable, Alcantarillado y Saneamiento de Ciudad Valles, Mexico (DAPA), is upgrading its current Elster water metering base with Elster's V-110 volumetric smart meters, as well as Elster's CoronisWaveflow™ and Waveport™ smart metering solutions  with automatic meter reading (AMR) capabilities.

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DAPA is a water and wastewater utility in the city of Valles, Mexico, and the technology upgrade is designed to more efficiently and cost-effectively deliver services to its 175,000 residential and commercial customers.

An Elster customer since 2006, DAPA's previous install base consisted of Elster V-100 copper volumetric meters. The utility is replacing these with Elster V-110 meters, which provide optimal accuracy and performance for smart water metering, and are pre-equipped to support the Waveflow/Waveport AMR technology upgrade. The Elster V-110 meters are constructed with co-polymer resin to avoid theft associated with copper meters.

"DAPA is pleased to move forward with Elster's AMI-equipped meters and technology to strengthen our services and efficient operations with automated reading capabilities," said Ingeniero Raymundo Cano, technical director at DAPA.

"We have been impressed with the reliability and optimal operations of our previous Elster meters, providing us the confidence to select Elster for all of our advanced metering and AMR initiatives and upgrades," Cano added.

DAPA has also begun installing the Waveflow and Waveport AMR technology, and expects to have the first 5,000 AMR-enabled meters operational by the third quarter of 2011. With the transition to an AMR system, meter data will be delivered quickly and reliably to DAPA's information systems, based on Waveport network interface modems. The Waveport interface is able to read, control and configure the Waveflow wireless transceivers remotely by radio frequency, allowing the utility to speed data collection and billing cycles, offer new value added services to customers and save time and operational costs.

The AMR system also will provide valuable insight into leak detection, back-flow, tampering, battery life and consumption by sending alerts to the utility from the meter source. In addition, the technology affords DAPA a water valve profile for remote shut-off, reducing maintenance required in the field and increasing efficiency.

"With our existing relationship and successful deployments with DAPA, we are excited to see the utility pursue AMR technology and its many benefits," said Jerry Lauzze, president and chief executive officer of Elster's water business. "As Elster solutions are widely deployed throughout the Mexican and Caribbean utility markets, we know that DAPA will help further set the pace for optimizing utility operations and reaping benefits with next generation metering solutions."

About Elster

Elster (NYSE: ELT) is one of the world's largest electricity, gas and water measurement and control providers. Its offerings include distribution monitoring and control, advanced smart metering, demand response, networking and software solutions, and numerous related communications and services – key components for enabling consumer choice, operational efficiency and conservation. Its products and solutions are widely used by utilities in the traditional and emerging Smart Grid markets.

Elster has one of the most extensive installed revenue measurement bases in the world, with more than 200 million metering devices deployed over the course of the last 10 years. It sells its products and services in more than 130 countries across electricity, gas, water and multi-utility applications for residential, commercial and industrial, and transmission and distribution applications.

For more information about Elster, please visit www.elster.com.

Please visit Elster at DistribuTECH in San Diego, February 1-3, 2011; booth #901. Please visit http://www.elster.com/distribuTECH for more information.

SOURCE Elster