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Livingstone Marufu
Egypt-headquartered Africa Export and Import Bank is partnering Zesa to install 800 000 prepaid electricity meters and 40 000 smart meters by year-end.
Power utility Zesa has been prompted to switch to smart meters due to technical faults and power leakages on some of the conventional pre-paid meters.
According to the latest report from the Ministry of Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion, Zesa has shortened the timeframe within which the project will be completed.
“Our development partner Afreximbank is helping our power utility Zesa in a US$130 million prepayment metering deal that will see some improvements in the energy supplies and efficiency in the country.
“The first phase of prepaid metering project is almost complete with more than 600 000 prepaid metres installed so far out of the targeted 800 000.
“The second phase of the programme is targeting to reach the 800 000 prepaid meter mark by year end, well ahead Zim-Asset’s target of 2018, the economic blueprint to empower the nation through reliable power supplies.
“Smart metering project is at procurement stage,” reads part of the report.
Plans to pursue smart metering technology came after the power utility realised the serious technical risks associated with the other four-year prepaid meter system, which is in place at the moment.
Statistics from Zesa claim that the current system is bleeding the power utility of a conservative US$120 million a year due to power theft and leakage.
A smart meter, according to power and energy experts, reports back to the centre any shortfall or meter by-passing taking place.
Zesa spokesperson Mr Fullard Gwasira told The Sunday Mail last week that the smart metering project will target medium and large power users in the first phase of installation.
“Zesa will install 40 000 smart metres at a cost of US$30 million before end of the year which will see us saving a lot of money, encourage cooperation between consumers and us to reduce peak loads and optimise resource allocation and efficiency.
“4 000 smart meters will be installed in the first phase and the other 36 000 smart metres are going to be connected in the second phase this year,” said Mr Gwasira.
The number of smart meters will gradually increase as more units would be deployed to replace faulty meters, especially in high risk areas in terms of theft of electricity depending on automatic feedback that would be availed by the same meters which report attempts of tempering.
The smart metering system consists of many components that include meters deployed at sites, communication infrastructure and the back-end system that is commonly known as the Meter Data Management System that will be acquired through a separate tender.
The availability of low-cost computing and telecommunications technologies, new renewable energy generation options and smart metering technologies are changing the rules of the game.
The project will be done internally to cut costs and avoid hacking the new system.
The new system can operate in both the post-paid and prepaid modes and in line with the power utility’s revenue protection strategies, such functional advantages enable ZETDC to collect cash upfront from those corporate customers just like what is currently happening with domestic consumers who are already on the prepaid system.
He said this will further enhance revenue protection by alerting ZETDC of any anomalies occurring at a metering point, improve and address the efficiency and effectiveness of the metering-billing-collection value chain.
African power utilities that use smart metering include Eskom (South Africa), Tanesco (Tanzania), Zesco (Zambia) and BPC (Botswana).
Online Reporter