Experts say smart meters to help Discos curb energy theft

Electricity Distribution Companies of Nigeria (Discos) may never overcome the challenges of huge revenue loss owing to Energy theft unless they perfect a strategic deployment of smart technology in their metering and monitoring processes, industry experts have warned.

BusinessDay findings indicate that a larger percentage of the revenue loss that Discos grapple with have being attributed to energy theft where people consume electricity without paying for it.

Industry watchers and technology experts in the country have advocated a more stringent smart technology deployment to be put in place to tackle the growing incidents of Energy theft if the country as the largest economy in Africa by GDP, hopes to grow her economy.

They noted that the use of technology and the development of software can help save the country from unnecessary expenditure and fraud in the power sector, as evident in the financial sector where the use of Remita– a payment gateway developed by indigenous software company, System specs, has been successfully used by the Federal Government for the Treasury Single Account (TSA), which has helped the government account for all monies gotten from all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Distribution Companies in Nigeria needs to invest in smart technology that will detect if a consumer is bypassing their meters or not, Thomas Dada, managing director, Frontier Oil and Gas Limited, said.

Dada observes that 40 percent of generated electricity in the country is lost to theft and a lot of people who use electricity do not pay for it.

He recommended that the only approach to solving the issue of electricity theft is by heavily investing in smart technology and prosecuting those who steal electricity; those who by-pass meters, and those who use it without paying for it.”

In his words, “These energy thieves are not only short-changing the distribution companies but also the entire nation. He added that it is affecting everybody that has invested in the power sector.

Only recently, Electricity distribution companies reported unpaid electricity bills from residential, commercial and industrial consumers as well as the ministries, departments and agencies of the three tiers of government to be N39.1bn pre-privatisation and N39.5bn post-privatisation as well as an outstanding interest of N15bn.

The figures as presented by the Electricity distribution companies show that Abuja Disco, N18.6bn; Eko Disco, N8.6bn; Kaduna Disco, 8.2bn; Enugu Disco, N7.2bn; Ibadan Disco, N6.8bn; Ikeja Disco, N5.9bn; Port Harcourt Disco, N6.8bn; Benin Disco, N5.8bn; Jos Disco, N6.5bn; Yola Disco, N2.4bn; and Kano Disco, N1.2 bn.

Dada further pointed out that huge investment in smart technology would eliminate this bottleneck in the future, stressing that technology deployed by cable television network is a clear example of how smart technology can be deployed.

“The smart technology that operates with Cable television network ensures subscribers are automatically disconnected at the expiration of their package. Discos needs to work out something along this line if they ever want to address the energy theft issue,” he said.   

Pius Okigbo, the immediate past president of Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) explained that the challenge facing the Nigerian software industry is that, locally developed solutions are lowly priced simply because they are made in Nigeria.

“There is nothing we cannot write in software programs but nobody is ready to trust us and pay us huge amounts of money as to make us bigger players in Nigeria and this is a big tragedy,” he said.

He added that, “We have developed some good solutions that foreign solutions cannot match. Foreign software became the humongous behemoths they have become because of huge patronage. They all have their humble beginnings.”

ICT stakeholders say that it will be very difficult to find companies to invest in the only solution to curb power theft, which is software technology, as the local software companies are not being patronised and encouraged, and foreign technology is an unrealistic option, now that the country is struggling with foreign exchange scarcity.

KELECHI EWUZIE & JUMOKE AKIYODE