admin
ZETDC has contracted four firms to install prepaid meters in more than 120 000 households in its ambitious programme to have 600 000 on the system by August this year.
Contractors installing the pre-paid meters have since temporarily shelved the exercise to allow ZETDC to work on a new system that recognises both pre-paid meters and smart cards.
Smart cards are an advanced technological system that allows consumers to monitor their power usage.
ZETDC has since urged customers willing to use smart cards to buy them once they are on the market.
In an interview yesterday, the firm’s managing director, Engineer Julian Chinembiri said the sale of smart cards would not affect its programmes to install pre-paid meters to customers free of charge.
“We are working on a new platform that takes both pre-paid and smart cards. We are now transferring data from the old system to a new system and as a result of that we have temporarily shelved installing pre-paid meters, for about a week. Those that would have bought smart cards will no longer need pre-paid meters,” said Eng Chinembiri.
Related stories…
He could not give the price of smart cards saying a cost build-up would be made by ZETDC and those firms contracted to offer the service and determine the figure.
Asked what had been the effect of pre-paid meter system on the firm’s revenue collection, Eng Chinembiri said they had experienced a fall in electricity demand, thereby affecting revenue collection.
“People are now conscious in using electricity particularly those on prepaid. Demand for electricity has therefore gone down but that gives us an opportunity to connect some of those people whom we were failing to connect because of unavailability of electricity. The fall in demand for electricity will not however mean that we will stop load-shedding, particularly as we are approaching winter,” said Eng Chinembiri.
Although Eng Chinembiri could not give the figures on the fall of electricity demand, he said the reduction was also attributable to the fluorescent bulbs that they recently introduced.
“We are currently making an audit to establish by which margin the fall is attributable to the fluorescent bulbs and pre-paid meters respectively,” he said.
Explaining how smart cards work, Eng Chinembiri said they allowed people to monitor their electricity usage pattern because it afforded a two-way communication.
“One is able to tell which gadget is accounting for higher power usage. For example you can tell that your geyser is consuming more of your energy and switch it off, if you want. You can also tell which time is expensive per unit particularly those peak hours and decide not to use electricity at that time,” he said.
The four contracted companies to install pre-paid meters are Solahart, ZTE, Finmark and Nyamazela of South Africa.
Zesa introduced prepaid meters as part of efforts to enhance revenue collection as it emerged that the power utility was owed hundreds of millions of United States dollars by customers.
Online Reporter