“The future of smart utilities is not about building three separate networks for electricity, water, and natural gas. It is about creating one intelligent digital infrastructure where every meter becomes a source of insight, every connection creates value, and every investment delivers greater efficiency, sustainability, and service to the communities we serve.” – MJ Martin
A New Vision for Canadian Utilities
Canada’s electricity, water, and natural gas utilities face mounting pressure to modernize infrastructure, reduce operating costs, improve efficiency, and strengthen environmental sustainability. An increasingly attractive opportunity is emerging through the integration of all three metering systems onto a common Wi-SUN wireless mesh network.
Rather than constructing three independent communications networks, utilities can share one intelligent infrastructure. Think of it as building a common highway where electricity, water, and natural gas information travels independently but benefits from the same roads, bridges, and communications infrastructure.
Ontario’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure Functional Specification explicitly recognizes the potential for electricity AMI infrastructure to support water and natural gas meter communications.
How the Technology Works
Wi-SUN, or Wireless Smart Utility Network, employs standards-based, IPv6 communications and self-healing wireless mesh technology.
Electricity meters, continuously powered by the electrical grid, become communications routers. Battery-powered water and natural gas meters connect to compatible nearby routers, allowing information to travel through the electricity mesh to network gateways and utility management systems.
Wi-SUN FAN 1.1 Low Energy technology supports battery-operated devices designed for operational lifetimes of 10 to 20 years. The Wi-SUN Alliance introduced its Low Energy certification program in February 2026, advancing the practical integration of these different utility applications.
Compatibility requires appropriately equipped electricity routers, certified communications modules, and suitable network coverage. Existing Wi-SUN installations are not automatically capable of supporting every water or gas endpoint.
The Business Rationale and ROI
The fundamental economic advantage is infrastructure sharing.
Municipalities and utilities can reduce duplicated gateways, telecommunications subscriptions, network maintenance, meter-reading operations, and associated capital expenditures.
Consider a hypothetical community with 20,000 water meters and 15,000 natural gas meters. Avoiding $15 annually per endpoint produces gross savings of $525,000.
After allowing $125,000 annually for incremental network operations, net savings reach $400,000. With an incremental capital investment of $1.6 million, simple payback is four years.
These illustrative figures require validation through a detailed lifecycle financial model. Additional benefits from operational efficiency, revenue protection, and avoided infrastructure investment could strengthen the business case.
Benefits Across Three Utilities
Electricity utilities gain a more productive communications network supporting advanced grid analytics, outage management, distributed energy resources, and power-quality monitoring.
Water utilities benefit from more frequent consumption information, earlier identification of continuous usage, improved billing accuracy, and reduced non-revenue water.
Statistics Canada reported that drinking-water distribution losses represented approximately 17% of Canadian water production in 2021. Intelligent metering provides another tool for addressing this costly challenge.
Natural gas utilities gain automated readings, improved consumption visibility, reduced estimated billing, and earlier identification of unusual consumption patterns. Appropriate additional sensors can support pressure monitoring and gas-safety applications. However, consumption anomalies alone do not establish the presence or location of a gas leak.
Governance, Security, and Regulatory Compliance
A shared network requires agreements governing ownership, cybersecurity, data privacy, service levels, and financial responsibility.
Electricity and natural gas revenue meters must satisfy Measurement Canada’s approval, verification, and sealing requirements. Communications integration must preserve these regulatory obligations.
The Strategic Outcome
The greatest opportunity is transforming three independent utility investments into one coordinated digital infrastructure platform.
The strategic questions are compelling. Should electricity distributors become municipal communications service providers? How should shared-network savings be distributed among utilities and customers? Could a common network become the foundation for broader Smart City services?
For Canadian municipalities, the objective is no longer simply smarter meters. It is smarter infrastructure, stronger financial performance, improved environmental stewardship, and better service for every customer.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a pilot, a philosophizer, and always, a romantic optimist.