New water meters coming to Winnipeg next year will read themselves, send data to the city

New water meters slated to installed in Winnipeg residential homes next year will read themselves and transmit encrypted water-usage data to the city, city council's finance committee was told Tuesday.

Winnipeg's water and waste department plans to embark on a five-year, $135-million water meter upgrade in 2026 that will see approximately 221,000 analog residential water meters replaced with new "smart" meters capable of monitoring water usage in real time.

Most of Winnipeg's existing analog meters are old — in some cases, 50 years old — and underestimate actual water usage by approximately five per cent, said Duy Doan, a water and waste project manager.

Replacing the old meters will generate more revenue for the city, allow homeowners to be alerted to leaks or faulty readings more quickly, and create more fairness in residential billing, Doan said.

Newer homes that already have digital meters do not underestimate water usage, he noted.

"As meters age they degrade and they start underreporting. So right now we have kind of an equity thing: Anybody who gets a new meter is kind of subsidizing a person who gets an old meter," he said.

"It is good practice to try to replace these meters every 20 years."

The City of Winnipeg has not met this target. The replacement program aims to modernize residential water meters across the city by 2030.

Water and waste director Tim Shanks said the replacement program will pay for itself in approximately 11 years, mainly because of the additional revenue the city will receive from more accurate readings.

His department also won't have to conduct manual readings once the new meters are installed. Neither will homeowners or residents.

The new meters will use radio waves to transmit data to the city. How often they will transmit the data has yet to be determined, Doan said.

The water and waste department also is not certain how much detail it will glean from the data and share with consumers. Several Canadian cities use this technology to show customers when they're using the most water.

Winnipeg home water meters slated for upgrade

2 days ago

Duration 1:23

Winnipeg's water and waste department plans to embark on a five-year, $135-million water meter upgrade in 2026 that will see approximately 221,000 analog meters replaced with "smart" meters capable of monitoring usage in real time.

City council finance chair Jeff Browaty (North Kildonan) said he hopes the city will show residents water consumption data in sufficient detail for them to make decisions about how and when they use water.

That could tell people, for example, "how much does it cost to maintain my vegetable garden, or how much does it cost on Sunday when I do all the laundry," said Browaty.

"You'll be able to actually quantify some of these things, if we go to the level of granularity that the technology could potentially provide."

The city does not plan to immediately replace several thousand existing digital meters, which do not transmit data to the city directly. Most existing new meters are read by water and waste personnel who visit the neighbourhoods in question and collect readings using electronic receivers in their vehicles, Doan said.

The contract for the software used in these existing digital meters ends in 2028, city spokesperson Lisa Marquardson said. They will be swapped out toward the end of the coming replacement program, she said.