Case Study: City of Martinsville achieves guaranteed savings and smarter utility operations with Johnson Controls

City of Martinsville - Customer Case Study

The City of Martinsville, Virginia needed to replace nearly 7,000 aging water meters and also modernize its electric metering and street lighting, but it lacked the capital to fund a major utility upgrade. Johnson Controls helped the city pursue a performance contracting approach, using a guaranteed-savings model to make the project possible without raising taxes or fees.

Johnson Controls implemented a $7.8 million upgrade that replaced 6,800 water meters, 8,300 electric meters, and more than 3,000 street lights with LED lighting. The project was expected to deliver $9.7 million in guaranteed savings over 15 years, improve water meter accuracy to 98.5%, reduce maintenance and meter-reading costs, and enable proactive customer service through real-time alerts for leaks, outages, and potential electric meter issues.

City of Martinsville

Leon E. Towarnicki

City Manager