City reports AMI smart‑meter rollout reading nearly all meters in one billing cycle; older commercial meters still require work
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Summary
Staff reported the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) rollout is in its second billing cycle; crews collected radio reads for all but 28 meters and expect future billing cycles to complete in a single day. Remaining incompatible commercial meters will require targeted plumbing work and replacement and will be addressed in future budgets.
Port Orchard — City staff updated the council on the city’s smart water meter (AMI) rollout and said the city completed its second billing cycle using AMI radios and successfully read all but 28 meters during that cycle. Staff said the remaining 28 reads were obtained by a radio‑read drive‑by and characterized the result as a substantial improvement over previous manual meter reading that took days.
Staff said the remaining meters are primarily older or commercial meters that are not compatible with the new technology and will require replacement or more significant plumbing work. Those replacements will be scheduled as construction projects; staff said they will address remaining incompatible meters through asset management planning and budget updates, and will report on this work during the mid‑year review.
Staff praised the operations crews for implementing AMI and said the new system should allow for faster reads, near‑real‑time data and improved leak detection and customer service once the remaining compatibility issues are resolved. Council members asked how staff were repurposing meter reading staff; staff said freed capacity is being applied to deferred maintenance and asset management tasks and promised further updates on how those resources will be deployed.
