District-wide Water Meters Project

  • Project typeWater Meter Installation
  • Project value$13.78 million
  • Completion Date30 June 2034
Meter Installed (2).jpg
Background

The provision of water meters to every user across all our Council's water supply networks is part of our Water Demand Management Strategy.

It is also consistent with the Waikato Regional Council Plan Variation 6, which is a planning regime used for the allocation of water. It states, "Priority is given to municipal and domestic supplies; however, the applicant must demonstrate the need for the water and also efficient use of the resource."

This is very relevant to the protection of water sources in terms of their environmental resource consent conditions and associated drinking-water requirements. This accurately reflects the concept of "if you can't measure it, you can't monitor it".

2024-2034 Long Term Plan budget

Water Meters LTP funding August 2025.png

Project scope

This project's scope is for the installation of universal water meters to all the reticulation networks throughout the district.

Under Council’s 2024-2034 Long Term Plan (LTP) as shown above, this project is proposed to be staged over a nine-year period beginning in the 2025/26 financial year.

Water meters will be progressively installed throughout the district in areas where they don't already exist with the major demand areas being the first to be metered.

  • FY2025/26 and FY2026/27 (Years 1 and 2) onwards: Whangamatā - this is the next area that has high usage.
  • FY 2027/28 (Year 3) onwards: Yet to be programmed.
Benefits

This universal water metering project is being undertaken because of the following core benefits:

  • Water metering has been proven to result in a lower level of unaccounted for and non-revenue water for councils.
  • Systems that have been identified as having high levels of unaccounted for and non-revenue water can then be targeted for further water loss investigations.
  • Our Council can more effectively manage their water demand and consumption.
  • Deferred capital expenditure for development of additional water sources, and associated treatment, storage, and distribution.
Current status
  • Coromandel Town, Whitianga, Thames, Pāuanui and Thames Valley are currently metered.
  • Our Council is continuing to “unbundle” locations where the current metering covers supply to multiple properties.
  • Whitianga metering was installed over the period 2022 to 2024 and went live on 1 July 2024.  There is a separate LTP project to unbundle Whitianga water meters.
  • Using a government grant from the Department of Internal Affairs a total 4500 meters were purchased in 2022 for installation only at Whangamatā.

  • Whangamatā water meter installations are scheduled to start in the 2025/26 financial year.

Smart metering

As part of this project, we are also investigating the installation of modern smart metering technology where a device is attached to the meter and allows for automatic recording of usage by live data transfer or drive-by data collection systems.  

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