In an effort to better manage the city’s water and energy resources, and to reduce water and electric wastage in the city, the City of Fort Collins, Colo., has initiated the Advanced Meter Fort Collins project. As a part of this project, the City of Fort Collins Utilities has deployed Smart Grid system from Elster. The project is being partially funded by a United States Department of Energy Smart Grid Investment Grant.

The City of Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University and an outstanding public school system. According to the city authorities, Fort Collins offers the convenience of a small town with all the amenities of a larger city. With the deployment of The Elster EnergyAxis Smart Grid solution, the city residents and businesses are expected to enjoy huge energy-saving benefits.

In a press release, Elster explained that its Smart Grid solution will power an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) system for Fort Collins Utilities' electric and water customers by establishing two-way digital communication between the advanced meters and system managers, allowing consumers to enjoy more flexibility in their water and electric usage. The deployment is expected to bring about improvements in the delivery system as a whole.

The Elster EnergyAxis solution, running on the Tropos Network communications system, will enable Fort Collins Utilities to analyze meter data to maintain high system reliability, make utility operations more cost effective, provide more information to customers and better prepare the utility and the community for emerging technologies.

By providing the wireless backhaul system required to transmit electricity and water usage data from the Elster Smart Meter to Fort Collins Utilities, Tropos Networks (News - Alert) is going to be a key component in the two-way AMI capabilities of the Fort Collins advanced meter deployment. In addition to the city authority, Elster will also work with Enspiria, the city's consultant, on the Advanced Meter Fort Collins project.

Approximately 100,000 advanced electric and water meter endpoints will be installed by the end of the second quarter of 2013, Fort Collins Utilities revealed in the press release.

“The goal of the Advanced Meter Fort Collins project is to develop a foundation that supports, informs and empowers our community to make informed decisions about how they manage water and electricity consumption,” said Steve Catanach, Light and Power Manager at City of Fort Collins Utilities, in a statement.

Earlier this week, Tendril, a provider of the cloud platform for the Energy Internet, and Elster announced that the companies have entered into a formal integration and reseller agreement that will extend the footprint and provide seamless integration of the Tendril Connect cloud platform with Elster's EnergyAxis Smart Grid system.