BEDC Set To Install 100,000 Meters

The Benin Electricity Distribution Plc. (BEDC) has revealed plan to install additional 100,000 meters for domestic and commercial customers for the remainder of this year. The company said it would strive to achieve the 100per cent metering of all industrial and Maximum Demand (MD) customers by November ending.

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, BEDC, Mrs. Funke Osibodu said that the company will also achieve the metering of at least 2,000 distribution transformers in order to adequately account for energy billing to customers.

“The company has been proactive in installation of meters having installed over 120,500 meters since takeover of the company. We have taken advantage of both the industry CAPMI Scheme and own funded meters. More than 25,000 out of these have been installed this year alone,” she remarked.

Osibodu noted that BEDC  has also commenced some projects to ensure the health of the customer meters including 100 per cent recertification and rectification of existing maximum demand customers; massive meter sealing exercise for domestic and commercial customers, prepaid meters recertification and rectification exercise, and shifting meters from customer premise to external visible locations.

She said the objective was to ensure that connections to the network were in line with safety standards, and to ensure only paying customers were on the network, and that by-pass or illegal connections were not allowed on the network.

She added that customers who have not paid their bills within 10 days of the delivery of bill will be disconnected from the network during this process.

Osibodu affirmed that since inception, the BEDC had embarked on series of improvement exercises in the areas of enumeration, payment channels, customer care, enforcement and monitoring, billing and metering among others, stressing that the improvement implemented in phases were further enhanced during the 2016 operating year.

According to Osibodu, the BEDC has also commenced the installation and activation of nearly 2000 transformers across its network as part of the process to improve quality of power supply.