Enugu Disco deploys 200,000 smart meters to end estimated billing

Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) is set to deploy 200,000 meters to address the major need of electricity consumers in the South East states.

This is in response to a recent charge by Anthony Akah, acting chairman/chief executive of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), to address rising complaints of estimated billing by its customers.

The power distribution company has therefore awarded contracts to three leading Metering companies: Mojec International Limited, MBH Power and Genus Power Infrastructure Limited in a move designed to solve the problem of unmetered customers.

According NERC statistics, EEDC has 732,423 customer size with 70 per cent or 512 335 of them unmetered, a development that has caused disaffection among its customers.

“We have identified metering as a major need of our customers, and providing them with meter is our primary obligation as an organisation. We are hopeful that with the deployment of these meters, our collection and energy losses will be reduced drastically,” said Robert Dickerman, managing director/CEO, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company.

He stated that the program is a continuation of EEDC’s ongoing metering of its Maximum Demand (MD) customers, and the Credited Advance Payment for Metering Implementation (CAPMI), a programme designed to enable willing customers within the network obtain their meter by advancing funds to EEDC to purchase and install these meters for them.

He went on to say that, “metering our customers has always been our priority, but due to the high level of energy theft and meter bypass, which constitute the huge revenue loss, we had to fine-tune and perfect our metering processes.”

EEDC has therefore deployed Geographical Information System (GIS) to map the network areas, and equally embarked on elaborate enumeration of its customers within the network with a view to providing a sustainable and comprehensive all smart metering framework that will address and forestall the high prevalence of meter bypass and energy theft being experienced in the region.

EEDC promises to sustain this multibillion metering program on incremental basis, as that is the only way the current metering gap can be closed up.

Customers are therefore advised to protect EEDC installations, avoid tampering with these meters and pay their electricity bills promptly.

Metering customers has been a major challenge facing most distribution companies; and the peculiarity of high prevalence of energy theft and meter bypass in the South East region has not also helped the situation. As a matter of fact, over 70 percent of the prepaid meters on the network are bypassed.