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The Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company and Eko Electricity Distribution Company are to phase out estimated electricity bill by providing pre-paid meters and automated billing, respectively
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Nov. 3, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT |
The agony of electricity consumers over inflated estimated bills will soon end if the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, IKEDC, and Eko Electricity Distribution Company, keep their promise to roll out prepaid meters and automated billing system, respectively. IKEDC has said it will roll out more than 500,000 prepaid meters to customers who do not have meters within the next three years. Abiodun Ajifowobaje, managing director, IKEDC, said the installation is part of the company’s strategic steps to ensure accurate and effective billings of consumption by customers.
Ajifowobaje, who spoke at a customers’ forum held in the 15 business units of the utility firm, said the two main challenges confronting the company were effective metering of customers and the inadequate quantum of energy received from the national grid. He said that finding lasting solution to them was paramount and that plans have been concluded on the metering project. The official roll out and installation of the meters will start before December this year.
According to him, the company’s daily power need is about 1,250 megawatts, but what it actually receives from the national grid is an average of 350mw to 450mw. “I am, however, happy to report that IKEDC is involved in talks with several partners to explore supply from embedded power generation, Independent Power Projects and other sources to improve supply. We are equally working on a robust metering model that will promote transparency in billing and eradicate energy theft, which poses serious challenge to us but before December this year, we will come out with policy on ways to improve power supply to customers.
“We have carefully studied the challenges facing metering of customers and we have come out with comprehensive approach on how to effectively tackle these challenges. Even now that we have not officially rolled out the planned metering scheme, the company had been able to install over 5,000 prepaid meters for customers at no cost since we took over the company on November last year,” he said.
Ajifowabaje said many customers within the company’s network have had prepaid meters installed in their premises, while we have arrested many customers bypassing meters. This development he said poses serious challenge to the company. He said customers with obsolete and malfunctioning meters would also have such meters replaced, adding that the company has made significant progress in its quest to ensure a robust metering system that would enhance accuracy in billing. The IKEDC boss said the management has come out with a robust plan that would address all challenges facing meter bypass by customers.
He noted that additional security features will be built into the new prepaid meter planned to be installed and would be deployed to areas notorious for tampering with meters. “Our first phase plan is to ensure that about 300,000 prepaid meters are rolled out by December while about 500,000 to 600,000 meters are being targeted for fresh installation and replacement of faulty ones in the said three years.”
Speaking on challenges facing the company on vandalism, Ajifowobaje stated that more than N1 billion released by the board to drive quick wins had been spent to date on rehabilitation of vandalised transformers, replacement of undersized overhead conductors, completion of abandoned distribution projects and reduction in estimated billing issues. “IKEDC has also centralised its billing system to drive accuracy and introduced the Automatic Meter Reading, AMR, system, which drives remote access to meters for efficiency and effective monitoring. We have injected about N1 billion to improve electricity supply through the completion of the ongoing network expansion and rehabilitation projects. About 40 vandalised transformers have been repaired and installed to boost electricity supply, while about 115 abandoned transformer projects are almost completed in various sites,” he said.
On its part, the Eko Electricity Distribution Company, EKEDC, said it stopped the distribution of prepaid meters because of the fear of bye-pass by many customers. Wola Ojoye, vice president, legal, EKEDC, said this fear has been responsible for the company’s inability to distribute the 9,000 prepaid meters it inherited from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, when it took over on November 1, 2013, adding that these meters go into negative after consumption of electricity already paid for by the consumers.
She said the company was prepared to partner with manufacturers of best quality prepaid meters that would not be bye-passed by its consumers, stressing that whether such meters were locally made or imported was not the issue. Ojoye said EKEDC has a plan to roll out meters in the country next January, noting that the plan has already been forwarded to the electricity sector regulators, the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, in Abuja, for their approval.
According to Ojoye, the company met big problems when it took over, stressing that what EKEDC met was not what it was told. Asked whether EKEDC did not avail itself of the due diligence which all the distribution companies were given opportunities to undertake, she said their officials were prevented from doing so by the electricity workers union. She said the union leaders refused to allow them to access facilities of the defunct PHCN. While stressing that the company was not interested in forwarding estimated bills to its consumers, Ojoye said it was automating the billing process because estimated billing was not profitable to the company.
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