Zesa launches US$35m smart meter roll-out programm...

Zesa launches US$35m smart meter roll-out programme

Zim Now Writer

The Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company, which is owed about US$42 million by customers who are still on post-paid meters, yesterday launched a US$35 million prepaid and smart metering roll-out programme aimed at curbing growing debt risks due to defaulting by major electricity consumers.

The programme, which was launched at Harare Polytechnic College in Harare, will target residential areas, farming communities, and small enterprises while smart meters will be extended to large and medium power consumers.

The remaining class of consumers, according to ZETDC acting managing director Engineer Ralph Katsande, who are fewer than those already on devices, generate the bulk of the utility’s revenue.

“It is therefore imperative that these points be migrated to the prepaid metering platform without delay and as such ZETDC has resumed prepaid meter installations starting with residential clients and small business units,” said Eng Katsande.

Prepaid and smart meters have the potential to lower the utility’s operational costs by between 55 and 60 percent.

The national power utility has previously blamed illegal connections and “primitive” methods of billing for the loss of potential revenue.

Since the introduction of the first-ever pre-paid platform in 2012, there has been a major shift in the purchasing of electricity tokens from the banking halls to the more convenient channels.

To date, Zesa has managed to migrate 751 000 consumers to the prepaid platform, especially small business points and domestic customers while 103 000 points are still on the post-paid and load limit platform.

ZESA stakeholder relations manager, Dr George Manyaya indicated that the smart meter concept was meant to address the security of electricity supply as well as to make the utility more customer-centric.

“As ZETDC, we are now able to boost our revenue collection, as we seek to deploy and recapitalise our operations. Efficient revenue collection will ensure that we have money to fund other operations, including the purchase of vehicles that attend to faults, buying fault locators so that we capitalise our business,” said Dr Manyaya.

Harare region alone has over 300 000 customers of which 268 484 are on prepaid meters.