Charlotte Water, a Department of the City of Charlotte NC, will be advertising a Request for Proposals (RFP) to acquire an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system and related products, software, and services (collectively, the “System”), for all of its approximately 325,000 water meters. Charlotte Water is issuing a separate RFP for the labor to install the AMI system. Charlotte Water intends for the successful vendor of this solicitation to be the prime contractor for the entire project to install an AMI system, utilizing the successful proposer of the AMI Installation RFP as a sub-contractor under one agreement with Charlotte Water. This will allow Charlotte Water to evaluate AMI Vendors separate from Installation Companies and make selections of the Vendor and the Installer independently.

The basic components of the System sought by Charlotte Water include the following:

• Water meters equipped with AMI meter interface units (MIUs) to replace all existing residential water meters
• Meter interface units, or “MIUs” capable of encoding, storing and transmitting meter reading and other data, such as tampering alerts
• A Charlotte Water-dedicated network or non-Charlotte Water-dedicated communications service to collect and transport meter reading and other information from the MIUs to a Head End System (HES)
• Handheld devices and software necessary to program and/or initialize the MIUs
• HES to collect, store, and manage the data which is delivered through the network
• A meter data management system (MDMS) that can store meter reads and consumption data and allow that data to be queried, exported and summarized, and from which standard reports can be generated
• A customer web portal to display interval consumption data and other meter-related information
• The design, installation and testing of information interfaces between the AMI system’s software components and Charlotte Water’s customer information system (CIS) and other systems, such as its field work order system
• All related documentation, including technical manuals and operating procedures
• Training of Charlotte Water’s employees in MIU maintenance, diagnosis and troubleshooting, as well as system use, operation and maintenance
• Shipping and managing the inventory of AMI equipment during the course of project deployment
• Where appropriate, installation of fixed data collection units, including the communications links between those collection units and the HES
• Provision of all necessary radio licenses, firmware, third party software or operating systems to ensure a complete and working system
• Satisfactory testing of all software, hardware and procedures prior to the deployment of the system according to the system testing and acceptance process set forth in the contract, and satisfactory testing of system performance at the completion of the project or at major milestones