Monmouth council asks staff to draft opt-out policy for radio-frequency smart meters

Monmouth 'Monmouth, Oregon' 'March 17, 2026'

Monmouth Power & Light Director Wade Kerry told the city council Tuesday that the utility's new advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) operates on a 900-megahertz network, transmits brief packets of data intermittently and has prompted a small number of customers to ask for alternatives. "Our meters are 6 watts," Kerry said, and they "transmit a total of 2 minutes a day, four times a day, about 30 seconds at a time." He described those figures to explain the utility's view that exposure is minimal and the system brings operational benefits.

The briefing outlined three types of effects for customers who opt out: additional manual meter-reading costs, reduced access to 15-minute-interval usage data and the loss of certain remote outage and voltage-monitoring features. Kerry said Monmouth currently has three locations that did not take the new meters and that the legacy power-line-carrier system those meters relied on is failing; that complicates long-term support for customers who keep the old hardware.

Why it matters: an opt-out policy would let customers who object to radio-frequency (RF) transmission avoid AMI meters but would increase utility operating costs and reduce some customer services. Councilors asked whether the work required to build and implement an opt-out policy would be worth the staff time and requested a clear estimate of the set-up and monthly fees that would recover manual-reading and billing costs.

What the utility said: Kerry noted AMI benefits including remote meter reads, more accurate billing and improved outage detection; he described an example in which a lineman used the AMI alerts to respond to a windstorm outage earlier than would have been possible before automatic readings. He also said about half of U.S. utilities that have implemented AMI allow opt-outs while the other half do not, and he referenced case experience elsewhere including Eugene Water & Electric Board.

Council response and next steps: councilors expressed sympathy for customers with health or privacy concerns and emphasized the need to recover the direct costs of any opt-out service. Several members said they would support allowing an opt-out if fees covered the city's additional work, and one noted that many earlier opt-outs decline over time when moving households are involved. The council asked Power & Light staff to return with a draft policy and a cost breakdown that would specify a one-time meter-swap fee and ongoing monthly charges and to identify the operational steps needed for implementation.

The council took no formal vote; staff said they would prepare a policy proposal, fee estimates and implementation procedures for a future meeting.