Water conservation: water meters: accuracy and performance standards.

(1) Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to establish design and construction standards and energy and water conservation design standards that increase efficiency in the use of energy and water for new residential and new nonresidential buildings to reduce the wasteful, uneconomic, inefficient, or unnecessary consumption of energy. Existing law requires the commission to establish minimum levels of operating efficiency to promote the use of energy and water efficient appliances, including landscape irrigation equipment. This bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2020, to the extent that funding is available, to adopt regulations setting standards for the accuracy of water meters, as described, that, on or after the effective date of those regulations, are installed by a water purveyor or manufactured and sold or offered for sale in the state. The bill would include an exception for a water meter that, as of the effective date of the regulations, a water purveyor possesses, or has entered into a contract to purchase, and has not yet installed. The bill would allow a water purveyor to maintain water meters that are installed as of the effective date of the regulations, or pursuant to that exception, until the end of their useful service, as determined by the water purveyor. (2) Existing law requires the state to achieve a 20% reduction in urban per capita water use in California by December 31, 2020, and requires the state to make incremental progress towards this goal by reducing per capita water use by at least 10% on or before December 31, 2015. Existing law requires the Department of Water Resources to adopt and update rules for urban retail water suppliers to conduct standardized water loss audits and requires suppliers to submit those water loss audits to the department on or before October 1 of each year. Existing law requires the State Water Resources Control Board, no later than July 1, 2020, to adopt rules requiring urban retail water suppliers to meet performance standards for the volume of water losses. The Water Measurement Law requires every water purveyor to require, as a condition of new water service, the installation of a water meter to measure water service. The law also requires urban water suppliers to install water meters on specified service connections, and to charge water users based on the actual volume of deliveries as measured by those water meters. This bill would require suppliers to submit water loss audits to the Department of Water Resources on or before November 1 of each year. The bill would require the State Water Resources Control Board, in adopting the rules for urban retail water supplier performance standards, to also adopt regulations to require each urban water supplier to sample and test its customer service meters to produce a statistically sound estimate of the accuracy of the urban water supplier's meter fleet. The bill would also make various nonsubstantive changes.