A Guide on How to Implement Universal Consumer Water Metering in New Zealand

Introduction

Water metering is one of the most powerful tools for managing water demand and improving network efficiency alongside active leakage control, pressure management, and targeted renewals. While not the only solution, it is the one that turns invisible losses and consumer water use habits into measurable data, actionable insights and significant tangible results.

Metering on both the network and customer side, coupled with volumetric charging, creates the evidence base and behavioural incentives needed to drive real change. It helps moderate consumption, expose customer-side leakage, and sharpen the accuracy of water balances. The result is smarter operations, better investment decisions, and a more efficient, resilient, and sustainable water system, one that delivers better value for communities while deferring costly upgrades.

But implementing universal customer water metering and volumetric charging is no small task.  It is as much a communications and logistics challenge as it is a technical one. Every property is touched. Thousands of mini-construction sites appear across the network. Each new meter, and every first bill, becomes a test of public trust and programme quality that is scrutinised individually by the customer, and by the community at large.

It's a complex process, beginning with substantiating the case for metering through to the active use of meter data for network management and customer empowerment. It is not a single project, but a journey of transformation, capability building, communication, and continual improvement.

The purpose of this guide

The How to Water Meter Guide walks readers through the practical steps of implementing a water metering programme and is designed as a complementary piece to the suite of metering resources already in the public domain.

The guide grew out of a white paper developed for a New Zealand water service provider to explore the issues associated with water metering. Practical “how-to” information wasn’t readily available, and this guide seeks to remedy that by sharing this experience to help others avoid reinventing the wheel.

This guide focuses on the how rather than the what of water metering: people and processes, rather than technology — because in the end, success in metering is as much about engagement, coordination, and communication as it is about pipes, meters, and data.

The New Zealand Metering Document Ecosystem

This guide complements other key resources that collectively shape New Zealand’s understanding of water metering and demand management.

From the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission,

• • 2024 Valuing water: Sustainable water services and the role of volumetric charging. Wellington: New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga.

  • 2024 Introducing water meters: Lessons and perspectives. Wellington: New Zealand Infrastructure Commission / Te Waihanga..

From Water New Zealand,

• Water Metering of Customers on Reticulated Supplies - Good Practice Guide 2017: Water New Zealand

• Water Metering Maturity Roadmap — a framework for sector maturity and continuous improvement. 2025 Water New Zealand

Together, these documents form the broader body of knowledge and guidance for water service providers embarking on their metering journey. This guide builds on that foundation by focusing squarely on the “how” of planning and delivery of a metering programme, bridging strategy and technical, grounding theory in real-world implementation, and translating intent into outcomes through people, processes, and programme design.

Where to next?