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Lackson Munkombwe, Sunday News Reporter
POWER company Zesa is set to roll out 40 000 smart pre-payment meters by the second quarter of the year as a way of improving revenue collection to fund initiatives aimed at improving supply.
Zesa spokesman Mr Fullard Gwasira said the meters will be installed at both domestic and business premises including the small and medium sectors.
“Smart pre-payment meters will be put in all areas that have no prepaid meters across the country,” said Mr Gwasira
“The exercise is there to encourage power users to pay for energy as they use it and will also enable us to monitor users while we are at the work stations and hence help the company to collect revenue,” he said.
Mr Gwasira said the exercise will improve revenue collection which has been a challenge over the years.
The power company said it is owed more than $1 billion by customers.
Mr Gwasira, however, said the meters will not be installed on farms.
Meter Data Management system (MDM), is a central system that enables remote communication with installed smart meters countrywide.
Using smart pre-payment meters, utilities now get reads from smart meters at an interval of 15 minutes or less.
The company back office can also ping the meter to check if it is communicating or not. They can contact the meter anytime remotely to find the reads, consumption and usage.
Zesa has cited massive leaks of pre-paid meter units which have seen more than 4 000 properties in Harare using electricity for free via by-passing the meters or tampering with them.
The power utility has also set several measures to help in the collection of revenue and improve efficiency for the power utility this year.
Mr Gwasira said the company was planning to complete the pre-paid metering project, provision of payment plans for overdue customer accounts, and offsetting of debts for Government and parastatals.
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