Ibadan Disco to start another phase of supply pre-paid meters
Electricity consumers under the jurisdiction of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company ( IBEDC), who have paid for pre-paid meters but are yet to get, would be serviced latest by December this year, the management of the company says .
The company says it is ready to meter all those that have paid for pre- paid meters but they must provide evidence of payment. The management stated this while conducting stakeholders and journalists round some of it facilities that had been upgraded to enhance steady power supply. It also showed them the over 11, 000 pre – paid meters it said would be deployed to customers starting from this week.
According to the company over N11.5billion has been invested in major capital projects such as metering, network upgrade and rehabilitation last six months.
According to John Ayodele, the chief operating officer who represented John Donnachie, managing director/ceo of the company said:“As part of our unwavering commitment to our mission, distributing power, changing lives, we have in the past 6 months invested over N11.5 Billion in major capital projects. These span across our franchise area covering – Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Kwara; parts of Kogi, Niger and Ekiti States. These projects are major game changers for IBEDC as a business and for our esteemed customers, which have significantly improved our service delivery, quality and quantity of power supply”.
He said recently, the company commenced the procurement and supply of 10,000 Distribution Transformer (DT) Meters at a cost of N4 Billion. These DT Meters will greatly reduce the challenge of estimated bills and ensure customers without meters are billed more accurately through its energy audit, accounting functionalities, and above all, assist in our Technical, commercial and collection (TC&C) losses.
To further reduce safety related accidents and top achieve the vision Zero and Safety culture of IBEDC, the board awarded a whopping sum of N1.47 Billion for a major overhaul of the Health, Safety and Environment department.
The project will deliver on over 60 critical need areas with major focus on procurement and deployment of PPEs, IPEs, signages, Labels and symbols. This project is expected to map the layouts of 114 Substations in order to develop conceptual site models, training on emergency techniques, solid waste and hazardous management programme, production of occupational health and safety environmental policies and framework for all technical and non-technical staff. In addition, it will ultimately aid us in attaining the certification required, thereby making us an internationally recognized health hazard compliant organisation.
“In line with reducing the incidence of estimated bills, we have commenced our meter roll out with a 1st batch of 48,470 Energy Meters of various ratings and capacities. This includes 35,000 Single-Phase, 12,000 Three-Phase, 1,470 Whole current, C.T-Operated and Statistical Meters all at a sum of N3.1 Billion, ahead of the MAP initiative currently being finalized by NERC and the Discos,” he said.
The continuous metering of Maximum Demand customers is also in place with the development of 13 High Voltage Energy Meters and delivery of 912 Low Voltage Maximum Demand Energy Meters at a cost of N405 Million. To further support the huge metering expenditure, we have invested extensively in the supply and installation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Systems at over N1 Billion, this investment is critical to optimally implement the functionalities of DT Meters”. As we speak, we have recently received 95% of CAPMI meters for deployment for those that paid.
The managing Director/CEO informed that the on-going Asset and Customer Enumeration (ACE) exercise estimated at a N5 Billion, is now fully rolled out across the franchise and is scheduled for completion early next year. The project on completion will greatly enhance service delivery by providing critical data needed for planning and provision of infrastructure, reduce estimated bills, improve the accuracy, enhance quality of power supply and quicker fault response rates. The pilot exercise at Elebu, (a community within Ibadan) has already identified additional customer population which is yielding fruits in terms of efficient customer service delivery.
Olusola Bello