City of Erie, Ks., Completes Installation Of Advanced Metering Infrastructure

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 27, 2022

The City of Erie, Ks., has completed the installation of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) for its public power utility. 

Erie, which is a member of the Kansas Power Pool (KPP), made the commitment in December 2020 to move ahead with this advanced technology after researching various vendors and options and attending the KPP AMI Technical event held at the Kansas Municipal Utilities (KMU) Training Center earlier that year, KPP noted in its Lightning Round newsletter.

Erie decided to install the Vision Metering system, which met its goals and needs in an affordable manner, KPP noted.

With the new automated meters and technology, Erie will be able to read meters remotely from the city offices, saving time, labor, and money, and increasing safety measures for city staff, KPP’s newsletter noted.

Along with reducing operational costs, the new meters will help improve reliability. The new technology allows Erie to detect problems more quickly and to locate outages more precisely and, in some cases, the city will be able to fix the problem before customers know their power has been out, KPP said.

KPP, one of two municipal energy agencies in Kansas, was established in 2004 under Kansas statutes with the execution of an agreement creating KPP by six Kansas municipalities.

Colin Hansen became KPP’s CEO and General Manager in early 2022 after serving as executive director of KMU nearly 22 years.

Along with his role at KPP, Hansen also serves as chair of the American Public Power Association’s Board of Directors.