San Marcos, TX, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- March 19, 2010 - The City of San Marcos has signed an agreement to acquire NorthStar Utilities Solutions’ MeterSense meter data management (MDM) solution, to further advance the City's smart metering project.

MeterSense will manage the information from the City’s smart meters, filling gaps and elevating data quality before presenting energy usage information for customers to view via web portal. With intuitive reports showing hourly usage online, customers will be able to visualize their energy patterns and have the ability to control their costs. Ultimately, customers will have the opportunity to save money through time-of-use (TOU) rates. MeterSense ties together utility information systems such as the Geographic Information System (GIS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and Outage Management System (OMS), allowing the City to easily analyze operations and monitor their vital electric and water distribution infrastructure.

In addition to serving up verified usage data for customers, MeterSense will present information to utility personnel. For example, the City will have immediate access to better water usage information to identify leaks and notify customers proactively. Service personnel will be able to respond more quickly to restore power after electrical outages. Also, by deploying the solution, San Marcos will actually be able to eliminate some of the other systems and services they are using, further reducing costs and eliminating system interfaces.

“We evaluated several meter data management solutions and MeterSense came out on top,” said Tom Taggart, director of public services. “MeterSense gives us strong and flexible validation plus configurable workflows to automate manual tasks. We’re confident that it will allow us to streamline our processes and get the maximum benefit out of our AMI system – in terms of both customer service and cost control.”