The Rollout of Smart Gas Meters Has Enabled New Use Cases Similar to Water

Gas meters are where water meters were 10 years ago in terms of smart meter adoption. As more gas smart meters are installed, gas utilities will eventually have access to the same type of real-time data that made leak detection possible on the water side.

Gas safety is one of those things that only makes headlines when something goes wrong. Behind the scenes, utilities, cities, and property managers handle a steady stream of odor calls, truck rolls, and late night emergency responses. Many of those calls turn out to be nothing, yet they still tie up crews and budgets. A few are real incidents that can change lives and communities in a moment.

Utilyze exists for that gap. We help utilities and property managers see risk earlier, focus on the right accounts, and make better use of the people and equipment they already have. Instead of waiting for the phone to ring, our platform reads usage patterns and surfaces issues before they become disasters.

What Utilyze does

Gas leak and continuous use analytics

Every gas system tells a story through its data. Utilyze listens for patterns that do not fit the usual narrative.

We analyze usage over time to find accounts that behave in ways that suggest a possible leak or abnormal use. That might look like usage that never really shuts off, or sudden jumps that are out of character, or activity at hours that do not match how that site normally operates.

You do not see a long list of rules or thresholds on the screen. Instead, operators see ranked lists of places that deserve a closer look. The goal is simple. Catch more issues earlier, and give field teams a clear order of operations so they can use their day more effectively.

Customer safety signals for stoves and appliances

Inside the home, one of the most common sources of gas risk is everyday cooking. A distracted moment, a burner left on, a curious child or pet, and a quiet kitchen can turn into an emergency.

Utilyze treats this as part of the safety picture rather than an afterthought. Our platform can recognize patterns that look like unusual stove or oven use and can support timely alerts through the channels a utility or property manager already uses.

The result is not a flood of notifications. It is a gentle safety net that helps households catch “something feels off” situations before they trigger a leak call or worse.

Electrification readiness and efficiency insights

Many gas utilities and cities are starting to plan for targeted electrification programs. The challenge is deciding where to start and how to spend limited incentive dollars wisely.

Utilyze provides a window into how different accounts and appliances behave over time. Without exposing every detail of our models, the outcome is straightforward. You can see which customers or buildings appear to run inefficient equipment, which sites show patterns that suggest higher risk, and where electrification might deliver the most benefit.

This helps program teams focus on a smaller list of high impact candidates instead of casting a wide, expensive net.

Portfolio and property risk visibility

For property managers and owners of large portfolios, gas safety is a coordination problem. There are residents, maintenance teams, central staff, and sometimes multiple utilities involved. Data is often locked in spreadsheets, inboxes, and different billing systems.

Utilyze brings that picture into one place. We support both unit level and building level views, whether the property is submetered or served through a master meter. Managers can quickly see which sites appear higher risk, which units have recurring issues, and where it makes sense to deploy maintenance crews next.

Custom alerts and dashboards are tuned for decision makers rather than data scientists. The focus is on clear lists of what needs attention, not raw telemetry.

Why the numbers matter

Gas safety is not only a public safety issue. It is also a balance sheet issue. Gas events of all types put pressure on O&M budgets, insurance programs, and emergency services.

This section uses a few simplified figures to show the scale of the problem and where analytics move the needle.

Fewer dangerous events

Serious gas incidents are rare compared to total calls, but they are extremely costly when they happen. Explosions and events that lead to hospitalization or major property damage frequently run into six figures per case. Industry groups estimate that utilities collectively pay tens of millions of dollars each year in claims related to death and injury.

No analytics platform can promise to eliminate risk. What Utilyze can do is help reduce the likelihood and severity of the worst outcomes by giving utilities earlier sightlines into unusual behavior. When potential issues are caught upstream, the probability of that one catastrophic event can drop, and that matters to safety metrics, public trust, and the way insurers and reinsurers view a system.

Smarter gas leak calls and false alarms

Each gas leak investigation carries a real cost. By the time you account for labor, vehicles, equipment, and overhead, a single call can average in the low thousands of dollars. At the same time, a significant share of odor and leak calls end with “no leak detected.”

On paper, those calls look like successes. In practice, they still consume hours of crew time that could have gone toward maintenance work or truly high risk situations.

Utilyze uses usage patterns and context to help utilities prioritize which calls and accounts deserve urgent attention and which can be triaged in a different way. The goal is not to ignore people who call in. It is to give operators better information so they can direct their most skilled teams where they are needed most.

Lower emergency response burden

Gas leaks do not only involve utilities. Fire departments and other emergency services respond as well. National level data suggests that hundreds of thousands of gas leaks each year trigger some kind of emergency response, with fire departments alone spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually on gas related calls.

When analytics reduce unnecessary or low value calls, they do not just save utility truck rolls. They also ease the load on firefighters and emergency services that are already stretched thin. Better targeting and fewer false alarms free up capacity for medical calls, fires, and other urgent needs.

A program level savings example

Consider a simple, illustrative scenario. Suppose a region experiences on the order of 600,000 gas leaks in a year and that a large share of those require field response. If the average fully loaded cost per incident is roughly 3,000 dollars, the total spend is measured in the billions.

If better analytics and proactive alerts reduce overall gas leak calls by even 10 percent, the savings in avoided truck rolls and related costs can easily reach tens of millions of dollars per year. That does not include the harder to measure benefits of fewer major incidents, better insurance terms, or improved customer trust.

The exact figures will differ by utility, city, and property portfolio. Utilyze works with each partner to build a tailored business case grounded in its own data.

Download our Gas Analytics Brochure for more information!