Albany Utilities: AMI rollout 88% complete; remaining 12% pose access, safety and cost challenges

At an April 10 meeting of the Albany Utility Board, utilities staff reported that the city’s advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) rollout is about 88% complete, with 78,720 of a revised total 89,831 meters exchanged and about 11,111 remaining.

Kendall Hodge, utilities staff, told the board: "So on the slide before you, what we have here is, our project completion rate. So in in total, we have 89,831, meters, to be exchanged. So far, we've exchanged 78,720. And we have about a little over 11,000, remaining." Hodge said the earlier figure of 91,947 meters was reduced after staff scrubbed accounts and removed inactive or apparently abandoned meters.

Why it matters: the remaining exchanges are concentrated in cases that require additional field work, customer cooperation or repairs to homeowner-owned meter cabinets. Those conditions increase project cost, slow deployment and affect billing accuracy and water-loss accounting, staff said.

Hodge provided a commodity breakdown: water accounts total 38,861, with 32,718 exchanged (about 84%); a middle commodity listed in the presentation had 16,165 accounts with 13,671 exchanged (about 85%); and electric accounts totaled 34,805 with 32,331 exchanged (about 93%). For water specifically Hodge said 6,143 water meters remain; about 3,700 of those will be handled by an outside contractor (listed in the presentation as H2O); the remaining water exchanges will be performed by Albany Utilities, including larger commercial meters that were always city responsibility.

Hodge described common obstacles for the remaining exchanges: material-condition problems in homeowner-owned meter cabinets (burned or "bad" lugs), hard-to-access properties, customer refusals, and safety threats to field technicians. He said technicians leave a door card informing customers of identified hazards and giving them 15 business days to hire an electrician; the card and a city web page link also list licensed electricians and explain the reimbursement process.

"When they uphold the meter so that they can perform the exchange, they've identified in some cases, material condition issues that pose a safety risk," Hodge said, describing degraded lugs and arcing. "We will not install an AMI meter. We will not even attempt to install an AMI meter because the AMI meter has technology built in that can detect these type of hazardous conditions."

City staff told the board they have approved 232 invoices from about 210 customers so far to offset meter-cabinet repairs; Hodge reported that year-to-date reimbursements total roughly $143,311. He said staff review invoices and the repair work before issuing payments.

On electric meters, Hodge said a contractor (referred to in the transcript variously as "Burmex/Vermex/Vermax") has roughly 670 electric exchanges in hand and is nearing completion of its assigned electric work; about 1,840 electric meters remaining are believed to require more extensive repairs that Albany Utilities crews will handle.

To reach customers who have not allowed access despite multiple attempts, staff said they mailed about 1,300 certified letters asking recipients to contact Albany Utilities within 15 days to schedule an exchange. Hodge said of an initial batch of 768 certified-letter responses, 546 customers (71%) had engaged and scheduled appointments; 194 had not scheduled appointments, and 28 of those required additional repair work. He said some customers who remain outside the 15-day window may be eligible for service disconnection if they continue to ignore notices.

"There is no opt out option," Hodge told the board. "At the end of deployment, all the utility customers, will have an AMI meter." He and other staff said they researched whether an opt-out policy had been developed previously and found no formal policy in place.

Board members pressed staff on enforcement and on due process for potential disconnections. Multiple board members urged that the utility make one more good-faith contact attempt before proceeding with disconnections and requested legal review; City Attorney Mister Jacobs was present for those discussions.

Budget and contracting: Hodge presented a project budget that showed $22.6 million originally budgeted and a projected $23.3 million expenditure (an overrun of about $706,000). During discussion, another board member, Michael Brown (board member), said the commission amended the project budget in January by about $955,000 and that the project is now roughly $250,000 under that amended budget. Hodge said ongoing unforeseen conditions and possible hourly-rate work for remaining gas swaps could still create additional cost depending on how the city proceeds.

Customer benefits and customer service: staff described system benefits they expect once deployment is complete — fewer estimated bills, near-real-time usage data in a customer portal, automated notifications for continuous-flow (possible leaks), and future mobile-app features. Angela Sowell, AMI system manager, said the system will generate continuous-flow alerts and "send out to customers whether it's via phone, text, or email, letting them know, hey. This is what we have seen." She said the city is encouraging customers to keep contact information current so automated alerts reach them.

Staff also discussed implementation next steps: continuing exchanges, contracting for a portion of remaining gas work (Hodge said a preliminary quote for contractor hourly support could range from $50,000 to $75,000), and standing up a steady-state AMI operations group to manage the system after deployment. The utility is holding two public town-hall meetings in mid-April to answer customer questions and said instructional videos and portal how-to materials are available on the city website.

What the board decided: no new ordinance or formal policy was adopted at the meeting. The board approved the meeting minutes for April 10, 2025 by voice/roll call vote (see "Votes at a glance").

Ending note: Staff repeated that completing the remaining 12% of exchanges promptly would reduce operational inefficiencies and billing disputes, but that the final phase will require more field work, customer cooperation or additional contractor support.

Votes at a glance

- Motion: Approve minutes of the April 10, 2025 meeting. Mover: not specified. Second: not specified. Vote: Burley — yes; Cahier — yes; Fields — yes; Woodall — yes; Chair Woodall — yes. Outcome: approved (unanimous).