Energy Briefs
–
THE Benin Electricity Distribution Plc has emerged the top performer among its peers in terms of meter deployment to customers. The BEDC, which is one of the 11 power distribution companies in the country, covers Edo, Ondo, Delta, and Ekiti states.
The metering performance rating report carried out by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission for the second quarter showed that the company outperformed other DISCOs.
A statement from the company said the announcement was made at a recent power sector stakeholders’ forum in Benin, with the BEDC scoring 65.30 percent to emerge overall lead performer in metering progress aspect of the report, which indicated the percentage of customers metered.
It said, “The BEDC has demonstrated its consciousness of the metering gap existing across its various customer classes and has commenced the process to cover the metering gap for existing customers in its area of operations. The company has been proactive in installation of meters, having installed over 120,500 meters since the takeover of the company. It has taken advantage of both the industry CAPMI scheme and own funded meters. More than 90,000 out of these have been installed in 2016 alone.”
The company plans to achieve 100 per cent metering of all industrial and maximum demand customers by the end of November, and the installation of 100,000 meters for domestic and commercial customers for the remainder of the year.
It will extend the existing automated meter reading capability to 3,000 maximum demand meters, and carry out metering of at least 1,000 distribution transformers in order to adequately account for energy billing to customers.
The BEDC said, “To achieve the target set, the company has, in addition to the existing stock of 32,000 meters, placed order for another 45,000 units for distribution, while it has also recently re-engineered its metering process with a view to eliminating all administrative bottlenecks to reduce processing and installation time.
“The company has implemented some projects to ascertain the health of the customer meters; 100 per cent recertification and rectification of existing maximum demand customers, massive meter sealing exercise for domestic and commercial customers.”
The company recently commenced the installation of over 10,000 small high-performing transformers called High Voltage Distribution System to reduce technical loss and provide higher quality of power to customers to enhance reliability.
It has developed an action plan to reduce technical loss through capacity addition by implementing network improvement projects as described in its capital expenditure plans. “This includes the installation of power and distribution transformers, line refurbishment by replacing undersized/damaged conductors and HVDS deployment,” the statement said.
— Oct 31, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
|
Tags: BEDC First meters NERC Provision Rank
