Eudora city officials got a surprise when it was discovered at the start of the month that some of the city’s new smart water meters couldn’t actually read customers’ water usage.

It was reported at Monday’s Eudora City Commission meeting that batteries, which have a 10-year guarantee, were dead in 153 of the 2,200 new wireless water meters installed in the last few months. As a result, meter readers found readings of no water consumption.

The smart meters are supposed to be in the off mode until a meter reader shines a light inside their pits to get a monthly reading, said Mike Hutto, Eudora public works director. Once the new water metering system is fully operational, the meters will be set to turn on once a month to send customer-use data via a radio signal to the city, he said.

Representatives with the meters’ manufacturer, Sensus, believe the meters were shipped in test mode, which had them on constantly, Hutto said. But he said that diagnosis wasn’t certain and the problem could be from an unknown defect. It is also not known how many more batteries may fail, he said.

The meter failures were not the fault of 360 Energy Engineers, the Lawrence firm contracted to install the smart meters, or the subcontractor who did the actual installation, Hutto said.

Hutto, Eudora City Manager Barack Matite and City Clerk Pam Schmeck said 360 Energy has been responsive to the issue. The company has assumed the labor cost of replacing the bad meters, and has agreed to compensate the city for the revenue the city lost from the bad meter readings.

Schmeck said those city water customers with defective meters that didn’t show water use from Oct. 1 through Nov. 1 would be billed the city’s base rate but not any additional fee charged for addition use per 1,000 gallons. She said 360 Energy would compensate the city for that lost revenue, which based on 2015 billing would about $3,000.

In addition, 360 Energy — which currently is working with the city of Lawrence on energy efficiency measures, was replacing the defective water meters at its expense, Hutto said.

Justin Pape, construction manager with 360 Energy, said the defective meters were sent to the manufacturer to confirm they were wrongly set to test mode. Although that has not yet been confirmed, Sensus representatives reported there was little chance many more of the smart meters would fail, he said.

“They said if they were going to fail, they should have failed by now,” he said.

Meanwhile, 360 Energy would continue to work with the city to remedy the problem, Pape said.

“It is our full intention that the city will get what it paid for,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to not inconvenience the city, address the issue and move on.”

The smart water meters are the key component of the city of Eudora’s $2.51 million energy efficiency upgrades undertaken this year. The city’s electric utility will also switch to smart meters. Hutto said those meters, which city public works employees will install, have been delivered.

The smart meters are expected to pay off by giving more accurate consumption readings so that the city can account for the 8 to 10 percent of water use it couldn’t trace with the old meters. It is expected the added revenue collected from the better readings would pay off the bonds used to finance their purchase.