Benefits of A Prepayment System
• Elimination of connection and disconnection costs
• Improved cash flow – Electricity paid for before use.
• Consumer can budget and manage his electricity more
effectively.
• No re-connection fees
• No deposit required
• No meter reading necessary
• Reduced billing cost (Printing & mailing)
• Convenience of electricity purchases
• No more billing estimates
• Will pay for used power only
• Improved security of buildings
Problems Associated with
Conventional Prepayment Meters
• Single-Purpose-Built Prepayment Meters regularly
develop faults when compared to conventional smart
meters
– Must be sent back to manufacturer for repairs or scrapped,
generating additional costs or new equipment purchases
• Power theft becomes paramount
– People find ways to beat system
• Small constant purchases
• Bridging of meters
Problems Associated
with Prepaid Meters
•
Power theft increases losses which force increases of tariffs to
compensate -– All rate-payers lose
– More customer revolt
•
•
Prepaid meters are stolen or deliberately destroyed in some areas
Lack of trained staff has cost some Municipalities dearly
– In some instances staff is trained but not managed properly, so system does
not get managed properly, causing damage and service disruptions
•
•
Maintenance in prepaid meter deployed areas is much higher
Prepaid meters require more maintenance
Problems Associated with
Prepaid Meters
•
Regular inspections have to be carried out on metering installations
– Auditing prepayment systems downloads
– Checking for bridged-out meters
– Not temper proof and cannot be monitored easily
•
Return on investment for prepaid meters is non-existent in some areas
– When units of 80kWh are used, income and profit are so small it cannot
even pay off the prepaid equipment loan
•
•
Changing technology makes prepaid meters out of date too soon and in
many cases prepaid systems have been changed due to new
requirements by the consumer and government -- such as free basic
electricity
Rate-payers expect more tariff flexibility with prepaid meters
– more trained customer service staff are required to cope with these new
requests
Problems Associated
With Prepaid Meters
• Paying power vendors - costs the municipality did not
have before -- vary between 3% and 6%
• Prepayment system must be administered on a daily
basis
• Customer tariffs have to cover up to three times more
in capital outlay for a prepayment system than on a
conventional system
TWU’s Approach To
Prepayment Plan Customers
• The short-sighted deployment of prepaid meters will simply
create additional CapEx losses as they are targeted by
increasingly irate consumers.
• There can be no distinction between any smart meter deployed,
regardless of its consumer account configuration (a matter to be
left to software programming in the central energy management
system).
– If a power theft is detected then all adjoining (subordinate
and supercedent) user connections can be suspended until
the thief is identified and the theft rectified.
TWU’s Approach To
Prepayment Plan Customers
• Smart grid applications are needed to make the local power
distribution grid self-aware
– Capable of detecting and shutting down illegal connections without
the physical intervention of outside plant personnel.
– Remote monitoring,
– Distribution automation sensors, and
– Smart meters
– Fully integrated over a broadband network by a dedicated local
energy distribution management system
• Precluding implication of outside plant personnel in power theft.
Who Is TWU?
• South African BEE Company
• National ECNS & ECS Licences in SA
– Will Acquire Similar Licences in Zimbabwe
• Experienced Management Team
– World-class Telecom / AMI partners
• World-class Technology Solutions
• Committed to Customer Satisfaction
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TWU’s ROLE
• Provide Internet access services, along with payas-you-go business-to-business services
• Procure, implement, and operate a wholesale
local fulfillment service for all cellular network
carriers offering mobile calls in ZESA Zimbabwe
metro area
• Provide no-cost metro, and low-cost national VoIP
calls to all ZESA Zimbabwe metro customer sites
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BENEFITS
• TWU Responsibilities:
– Technology Procurement
– Implementation
– Interoperable Management
• Three Separate Management Systems
• TWU Charges on a Pay-as-Used Basis
for All Managed Services
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