IESCO plans to launch new electricity meters
PHOTO: FILE
The Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) has planned to start installing over 1.4 million Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) meters of all tariffs in Rawalpindi Circle from January 2024.
Official sources said Sunday that the project would be completed within two years. Currently, data back and operation centres are being set up at Gujjar Khan and IESCO Headquarters and G-10 respectively besides the operational laboratory.
They said initially, some 512 AMI non-billing meters were installed in March 2022 as a pilot project. Switching over to the AMI system will bring about a permanent elimination of power pilferage with systematic control of transmission through round-the-clock monitoring of the electricity meters.
This technology would help reduce power sector losses, enhance the quality of billing and recoveries, control power load-shedding and also address the consumers’ complaints of wrong or over-billing, they said.
The AMI system will end human interventions in meter reading, enhance customer support, better measurements, more accurate billing, a degree of control of consumption and help improve IESCO’s ability to reduce non-technical losses.
This system has already been installed at Multan and Lahore but at a very limited scale. The project was launched at Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) with the financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The ADB had provided $170 million for the AMI project being carried out in the IESCO phase wises. “In the first phase, all electricity meters installed at Rawalpindi Cantonment and City Circles were being switched to AMI with an estimated cost of $95 million. Over 900,000 electricity meters would be replaced in the city with smart meters in four years,” they said.
The project was part of the second power distribution enhancement investment programme under ADB financing.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2023.