Sikeston residents to get new, improved electric, water meters

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Sikeston residents will begin seeing workers replace their electric and water meters beginning this week.

Anixter and Sikeston Board of Utilities crews will begin installing the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) this week while MB construction will install the new water meters.

"The majority of electric and water meters in the City of Sikeston have outlived their useful life and need to be replaced in order to continue operating accurately and efficiently," said Rick Landers, Sikeston BMU general manager. "Rather than replace these aging meters with outdated technology, now is the best time to adopt modern technology. The meter upgrade provides numerous benefits for BMU customers and will help BMU manage its distribution system more efficiently."

The new meters will be able to:

• Report and pinpoint the exact location of outages more quickly, meaning faster outage response.
• Identify potential water leaks, allowing them to be repaired more quickly and potentially avoiding excessive bills.
• Improve billing accuracy, eliminating misreads or inaccurate readings.
• Effectively troubleshoot billing questions by providing information about individual power consumption patterns, outage and blink count history and voltage information.
• Provide the customer real-time, detailed consumption data which will help customers analyze their consumption patterns. This can help both commercial/industrial and residential customers conserve energy and water and reduce their costs.

Landers said they plan to have every electric and water mater in Sikeston converted by the end of 2020 and it will only take a few minutes to install the meters.

"Your power or water will go off for a few minutes when the new meter is installed," Landers said. "You will need to reset electronic clocks and other devices. The technician installing your new meter will first knock on your door to inform you that they are about to begin the installation. If you are not home, the technician will go ahead and finish the installation."

The new meters will be at no additional costs to the customer, according to Landers.

"BMU is investing in AMI as part of a long-term strategy to improve operational efficiency and service," Landers said. "The meters are an investment for BMU, just like building a new substation or other infrastructure. No additional rate increases are required to fund this project."

The format of the bill will also not change. The first billing statement following a meter installation will show two readings: one for the old meter and one for the new meter. The sum of the two readings is the monthly usage. Future bills will show one reading as they currently do.

Landers said there are two installation groups, one for water and one for electric. Because the electric meter installation is faster than the water meter installation, the customer's water meter and electric meter may not be changed during the same billing cycle.

"This would cause the old meter/new meter split mentioned above to happen on two different billing statements, with one showing the water meter install and the other the electric meter install," Landers said.

With the installation of the AMI meters, Sikeston will be using the most current method in the industry. According to Landers, in 2018, 53% of U.S. electric customers were using AMI meters and that number is growing every day.

"Our AMI system will allow Sikeston residents and businesses to take advantage of the most current tools available to manage their utility usage," Landers said.