How ITRI's AMI Essentials is Driving Tucson's Water Conservation

Itron, Inc. ITRI Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Essentials for water was recently deployed by Tucson | Tucson Water in Arizona. This initiative aims to modernize Tucson’s water infrastructure, empower its residents and support the city’s long-term sustainability vision. With a fully bundled, pre-integrated solution, Itron is helping Tucson Water enhance visibility, reduce water loss and improve operational excellence.

Itron’s AMI Essentials for water is specifically designed to support small- and medium-sized water utilities across the United States. It provides an accessible on-ramp to AMI technology, combining smart meters, advanced network connectivity and robust data management tools into a bundled, pre-integrated solution. For Tucson, the solution includes 250,000 smart water communication modules, Itron’s cellular Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) and Itron’s Temetra meter data management system. This comprehensive package gives Tucson Water the technology needed to transform daily operations, improve conservation efforts and strengthen community engagement.

Tucson’s water supply presents unique challenges as it relies heavily on Colorado River water, which is transported, treated and then recharged into local aquifers. To secure its future water supply, Tucson developed the One Water 2100 Plan, a holistic approach prioritizing water resiliency, sustainability, equitable access and community-driven conservation. The adoption of AMI technology supports all these principles, making real-time data and system-wide visibility key to effective water management.

Core Benefits of ITRI’s AMI Essentials for Water

With 15-minute interval data, Tucson Water can now detect leaks faster than ever before. Instead of waiting for monthly reads, the system identifies anomalies in real time and alerts the utility. Consumers also gain access to their own usage data, helping them make informed choices and adopt water-conscious behaviors. Through cellular-connected alerts, Tucson Water can notify customers about leaks or unusual consumption immediately. Reduced bill shock, faster issue resolution and increased transparency contribute to significantly improved customer satisfaction.

Automated data collection removes the need for manual meter reads, saving significant time and resources. Itron’s global experience of managing more than 100 million endpoints ensures Tucson benefits from a proven, reliable network model. The bundled AMI Essentials for Water solution includes three core components that will modernize Tucson’s water operations.

First, the city will deploy Itron Cellular 500W modules across all endpoints, turning existing meters into smart meters that capture and transmit 15-minute consumption data via cellular networks. Second, Tucson will leverage Itron’s Cellular NaaS to transition from AMR to AMI, allowing Itron to manage both the network and headend software suite on the city’s behalf.

Finally, the city will implement Temetra, Itron’s cloud-based meter data management platform, to unify reads from multiple meter types, support seamless AMR-to-AMI migration and provide map-based routing and AI-driven asset insights. With Temetra, Tucson will gain full visibility into its distribution system, detect usage spikes and non-revenue water loss and enable customers to monitor consumption and better manage their water bills.

Itron, Inc. Price and Consensus

Itron, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Itron, Inc. Quote

However, Itron is expected to face margin pressure due to intensifying competition in the AMI space, particularly in North America, which might drag down meter prices. Additionally, in Europe, numerous service providers (software, meters, communication, installation, etc.) often provide complete deployments, which take away the opportunity to implement a pricing premium for a comprehensive end-to-end solution provider like Itron.

The difficulties arise from several challenges that utilities and commissions come across. These include the pressing need for improvement and expansion of generation, transmission and distribution. Consumers are delaying bill payments due to higher interest and inflation rates. The delay in federal spending is also increasing the pending bookings.

ITRI’s Zacks Rank and Stock Price Performance

ITRI currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). The stock has declined 12.3% in the past year compared with the Zacks Electronics - Testing Equipment industry’s fall of 4.9%.

Key Picks From the Computer and Technology Space

Some better-ranked stocks from the broader technology space are MongoDB, Inc. MDB, Atlassian Corp. TEAM and Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR. MDB sports a Zacks Rank #1(Strong Buy) while TEAM & PLTR carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

MongoDB’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 69.3%. In the last reported quarter, MDB delivered an earnings surprise of 67.1%. MU shares have skyrocketed 96.6% over the past six months.

Atlassian’s earnings beat the consensus estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 20.7%. In the last reported quarter, TEAM delivered an earnings surprise of 25.3%. Its shares have declined 24.6% in the past six months.

Palantir Technologies’ earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters while meeting in one, with the average surprise being 16.3%. In the last reported quarter, PLTR delivered an earnings surprise of 23.5%. Its shares have surged 156% in the past year.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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