City of Brantford looks to reduce water usage and costs with upgraded meters

In an effort to reduce water and cash flow, the City of Brantford is installing upgraded water meters in every home.

The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system uses radio transmitters to share data from each home within the municipality.

“It’s transmitted at least six times a day, so we have a lot more data,” said Selvi Kongara, director of environment services for the city. “So if we see any reading out of the normal pattern, then we can alert the homeowner.”

The water meter is installed inside, and the radio transmitter is installed outside the home. According to the city, the same technology is already being used in some neighbouring cities like Cambridge, Hamilton, and Waterloo.

The project is costing the city about $12 million but Kongara says it also helps save money because before, the city manually read meters every month.

“All that manual reading will be eliminated because the readings are transmitted automatically. So there are savings close to $200,000 per year,” she said.

That number includes salaries as small costs add up, such as fuel and materials.

The water supply in Brantford is 100 per cent sourced from the Grand River and Kongara says the new meters would help with water conservation.

Brantford's old system also proved problematic in the case of snowbirds, for example, who are away for months at a time and have water meters that are inaccessible to meter readers.

“If there is a leak during those months, then the residents have a very high bill. Unfortunately, there is no way they knew about it,” Kongara said. “That is a big loss, you know, a hit on their pocket.”

The president of Norton Engineering, who is also a sewer expert, says water conservation is a big issue in Canada.

“Our per capita or per person use of water is one of the highest in the world and that's likely because we have so much fresh water in Canada,” said Barbara Robinson.

She says the more municipalities that instill AMI systems, the better.

“With these systems in place, residents could check their water use over the course of a day. And ultimately, I presume we're going to want to be implementing time lapse pricing in these systems like we have in the electrical system, which means we would encourage residents to use water off peak,” Robinson said.

Roughly 17,000 or 40 per cent of the homes in Brantford have already been switched over at the rate of about 800 a week. The city says work is being completed one neighbourhood at a time. Residents are asked to book their appointment after receiving their notice in the mail.

In the future, Kongara says the city plans to develop an app so that homeowners can track water usage and their billing in real time.