The Board of IAWAI, the new council-owned waters company delivering water services to Hamilton City and Waikato District, has confirmed a metering rollout plan over the next four years for Hamilton.
An initial trial of metering for 200 households in Hamilton East provided valuable insight into options for the installation project but also revealed the benefits of metering data. Almost one in five properties had previously-unknown water leaks on their property – together allowing around 5 million litres of treated water to be wasted.
AWAI chief executive Peter Winder says metering is the single biggest contributor to finding efficiencies in the future costs of water services.
“If we want to maximise every dollar our communities put into treatment and supply, we need to identify this and fix it,” Winder said. “Metering will let us do that.”
“It boils down to this; the costs for households if we don’t start metering would be far greater than the costs to introduce them.
“There’s a raft of benefits from metering, whether it be environmentally, culturally, financially, or simply because without significant conservation we will exceed the limits of our consents. We use around 50% more water per person than households in Tauranga – at this rate we will hit the limits of our consent to take water within the next 10 years.”
Metering in other parts of New Zealand and around the world has improved water conservation. Household usage has reduced by around 20% at peak demand times, which means existing assets and investment go further.
“If we don’t achieve these savings, we will need to bring forward new infrastructure investment of around $780 million across 30 years, some of which would be required within 10 years. These are unbudgeted costs which would drive household water bills higher. Metering will let us fend off these costs for longer,” Winder said.
A large-scale trial is planned for 2027 with a multi-year rollout of meters in a project budgeted with a 15-year ‘whole of life” cost of around $155 million.
Minimising the impact of increased costs to deliver water services is a fundamental principle of the establishment of IAWAI.
The median residential annual increase for Hamilton has dropped from $265 to $174 per year – a decrease of $91 from that originally indicated. For Waikato District customers, increases in water and wastewater fixed charges fall from $364 to $142 per year. This combined with volumetric charges (based on an average water use of 210m3 per annum) brings the previously forecast increase in charges for Waikato District customers down to $174.
From 1 July 2026 IAWAI water charges will be shown clearly and separately alongside rates notices and billing. Residential water customers in Hamilton and Waikato District will now see two separately itemised IAWAI charges for water and wastewater along with their rates invoice.
