Columbia considers $42 million utility meter modernization project
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Columbia is looking to finalize a $42 million project to modernize the city's electric and water meter infrastructure; replacing and retrofitting tens of thousands of aging meters with advanced technology designed to improve billing accuracy, outage detection and customer access to utility data.
The proposed Advanced Metering Infrastructure project would replace 53,992 electric meters and replace or retrofit 52,747 water meters across the city. The system would allow utility usage data to be collected remotely, replacing the city's current meter-reading process.
City staff says Columbia faces several challenges with its current system, including manual meter readings, meters that have exceeded their useful life, operational inefficiencies, a lack of data transparency, and meter failures caused by dead, stuck, or inaccurate equipment.
Under the proposal, Columbia would install new solid-state electric and water meters, establish a city-wide Advanced Metering Infrastructure network and integrate new meter data management software with the city's existing utility billing and customer portal systems.
During a City Council work session Monday, Utilities Director Erin Keys said staff have been working on the proposal for several years. Columbia selected Ameresco in March 2025. The agreement was amended in August 2025 to include the evaluation and development of an AMI solution for the city's electric and water utilities.
Ameresco conducted an audit of the city's utility metering systems, reviewed meter databases, performed field surveys and evaluated current operations before developing the recommended project scope.
City Engineering Supervisor Eric Wortz said Columbia has fallen behind other utilities in adopting modern metering technology.
“It's really important to get done because the technology we have, we're pretty behind,” Wortz said. “We really need to catch up with the way that other electric utilities around the state and around the country are doing their data collection for metering.”
Representatives from Ameresco called the project “a data, not a plumbing project”.
According to city documents, residents would gain online access to hourly and daily electric and water usage information, receive leak alerts and benefit from faster responses to service inquiries and billing disputes. The system would automatically notify customers of potential leaks by email.
Ameresco added on Monday that some customers could see rate increases as a result of the change if their current meters were giving inaccurate readings. Wortz said the new technology would allow the city to identify leaks and outages much faster than the current system.
“They're not able to detect a water leak until a month has passed by. So you might have a leak in your house, so you might not even know it,” Wortz said. “On the electric side we can't tell when your power is out. We rely on you to call us and let us know that your power is out. With this system, we'll be notified automatically, and that allows us to respond to your outage faster."
Staff also cited benefits including more accurate utility data, reduced water loss, high-consumption alerts, theft and tampering detection, outage detection and greater transparency for customers.
Officials say the project would improve outage detection and restoration efforts while reducing unaccounted-for utility consumption. Electrical meter replacements would be completed before water meters because some water meters are buried or located in deep pits that require additional work.
The project carries a one-time cost of approximately $42.1 million, including a $41.97 million turnkey contract with Ameresco, software integration costs and three years of measurement and verification services.
City officials estimate annual software costs will begin at about $600,000 and increase roughly 3% each year.
To pay for the project, the city is working with lenders and expects to use either a loan or special obligation bonds. Debt payments would be spread throughout 10 years, with annual payments gradually increasing to about $5 million.
Staff projections estimate the system would generate more than $71 million in savings and additional revenue over a 15-year period through operational efficiencies, reduced meter-reading costs and increased utility revenue collection.
Julie Ryan, co-founder of the CoMo Safe Water Coalition, said modernizing aging meters has value, but questioned whether the project should be prioritized over other unfinished utility projects.
“Being able to improve upon the metering systems that we have, especially ones that are out of date, is something that is important. However, I think we really need to look at how this fits into the overall structure, the overall plan of what we're doing with water electric here in Columbia,” Ryan told ABC 17 News. “This isn't an insignificant expenditure. This is $42 million that we're looking at in terms of trying to improve the metering infrastructure when we have multiple projects, both on the water and the electric side, that aren't completed yet.”
Ryan pointed to several ongoing infrastructure projects she believes should remain a priority.
“We have the transmission line that still hasn't been built. We have multiple water bond projects that aren't complete, and that was money that voters gave to the city to get these projects done," she said. "So it's really hard to look at something like this with this metering and see that they're talking about potentially getting funding from lenders or going for a bond issue when we have definitely shown historically that the city cannot complete projects that they've been given funding for.”
Among the proposed benefits, Ryan said leak detection could provide the greatest value.
“The biggest thing that I would see as a benefit would really be anticipating leaks and being able to see that there's a lot of revenue that is lost through leakage, and that is something that can happen," she said. "I think the thing that concerns me, though, is that this is a new toy. It's a meter, a monitor of what's still broken.”
But Ryan also cited concerns about the status of other water infrastructure projects.
“One thing is this water tower in the southwest. We still don't have that. We still don't have land identified,” Ryan said. “One problem, too, is that we are getting progress on the water treatment plant, but it isn't really what we wanted holistically to see. There were deferred things that weren't going to happen under Phase 1. We had to spend more money than what was estimated because of the delay in getting that done.”
City staff plans to continue discussions on the proposal before bringing contracts to the City Council for consideration. If approved, new meter installations are expected to begin in March 2027. Wortz said electric meter replacements are expected to take about 18 months, while water meter installations could take two to three years.
