Confidence You Can Measure: What Utilities Should Expect from Modern Metering
In the water utility world, expectations around metering technology have shifted dramatically over the past decade. In this episode of Talking Under Water, Water World Editorial Director Bob Crossen sat down with Blake Michal, Manager of Solutions Engineering at Kamstrup, to talk about what utilities really want from their metering systems today, how Kamstrup backs up its claims with rigorous testing, and what it means for a utility when a reliable AMI system frees up time and resources that used to go toward ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting.

Bob Crossen: How have utility expectations around metering changed over the years?
Blake Michal: Today, utilities are really focused on data accessibility — how granular the data is, how often they receive it, and how it can make their operations more effective and efficient. They also want to know that devices are reliable and that they’ll actually last as long as promised.
A lot of preconceived notions that utilities bring to the table come from past experiences; maybe they were early adopters of a technology and the battery failed well before its expected life, or they dealt with assets that got stranded in the field. Those experiences are valid, and they shape how utilities approach their next investment. But I do think expectations are changing for the better. 
BC: Utilities talk to each other a lot. How does Kamstrup navigate that?
BM: It’s a tight-knit industry, and we think peer-to-peer conversations are incredibly valuable. We actually lean into that rather than shy away from it. We want utilities to do more than take our word for it. We encourage them to schedule an on-site visit to an existing Kamstrup customer, sit down with someone in the same role at a different utility, and really experience what “day-in-the-life” looks like with our system.
Beyond that, we do extensive testing to make sure what we’re saying is true to real-world performance. Every meter is tested before it leaves manufacturing. And one of the more exciting things we’ve been doing recently is pulling meters from the field that have been deployed for more than 10 years, and running them through rigorous battery-life testing. We’re about halfway through the lifecycle of some of our 20-year systems, and we want to confirm those meters are going to go the distance.
BC: What does that testing rigor look like?
BM: On the flow-testing side, everything is tested to AWWA flow specifications. We also hold ourselves to ISO internal data processing and traceability standards throughout the manufacturing process. One thing I’m particularly proud of is the granular level of our traceability. If there’s ever an issue with a specific batch of meters, we can pinpoint exactly which units were affected. 
When we ran the battery life test a few years ago, the results exceeded our expectations, projecting well beyond 20 years of battery life. Now we’re running that test again with meters that have been in the field for a decade-plus, because temperature and real-world conditions do affect battery longevity over time. We want to stay ahead of the curve for our current customers. By the end of their 20-year lifecycle, we want them to have had such a good experience that they’re ready to go again.
BC: What are customers with longer-tenured systems telling you? 
BM: It’s encouraging. The feedback from our older customers — systems that have been fully operational for 10-plus years across all kinds of installation environments— is consistently positive. They’re reporting on the quality and reliability of the data over time, not just in the early deployment phase when everything is new. 
BC: If maintenance and repair demands go down, what can a utility do with those freed-up resources?
BM: It’s really about the opportunity cost of time. If you deploy an AMI system and spend most of your time troubleshooting it — dealing with communication issues, managing field repairs, constantly putting out fires — you’re not actually getting the operational benefits you paid for. A truly reliable system changes that equation. What we see with utilities that have dependable systems is a shift from reactive to proactive maintenance. Instead of band-aiding problems, their teams can prioritize long-term planning. Data replaces opinion in decision-making. And utilities can start addressing structural challenges — such as brain drain from retirements, constrained budgets, and staffing shortfalls — in a more strategic way.
When it comes to evaluating what that’s worth, I always bring it back to the total cost of ownership over the 20-year life of the system. Two systems might look identical on paper, but if one requires constant triage and the other just works day in and day out, that difference has real dollar value. It takes some data-driven math to quantify, but it’s a crucial part of any honest evaluation.