PREPAID METERS-EGYPTIAN EXPERIENCES
Mohamed El haroun* Ahmed Abdel Kader Nour*
Mohamed Mounier Mohamed Aly**
*North Delta Electricity Distribution Company (NDEDC)
**Canal Electricity Distribution Company (CEDC)
Egypt
PREPAID METERS-EGYPTIAN EXPERIENCES
Mohamed El haroun* Ahmed Abdel Kader Nour*
Mohamed Mounier Mohamed Aly**
*North Delta Electricity Distribution Company (NDEDC)
**Canal Electricity Distribution Company (CEDC)
Egypt
Abstract
Electronic meters provide many new features like prepaid metering that can improve the efficiency of the utility .
Due to the intelligence built-in into the electronic meters , introduction of prepaid metering becomes much more easier than in the case of electromechanical meters.
Main advantage of the system is that the utility can eliminate meter readers .Another benefit is that it gets paid in advance. The consumer benefits due to elimination of penalty for late payment. Also it enables him to plan his electricity bill expenses in a better manner .
A prepaid meter project consists of many facets, all of which contribute to the success of the project.
Some of these facets : consumer needs, supply authority needs, consumer perceptions, technology, ongoing support and vending……
To be successful, a project meet both consumer and supply authority needs as completely as possible. The consumer requires a reliable source of electricity for a cost that is within his budget. The supply authority requires a system that will enable it to reliably and efficienly control the sale and use of electricity .
The project consists of two main parts : the initial inastallation and setup project allowed by the ongoing maintenance and support project .
The prepaid meters system consists of : electronic meter, vending station, personal compter, database, software and card reader.
The prepaid meters project has started in Egypt on implementation phases .
This paper examines : project identificaion, consumer types, installation and problems. Also, evaluaion of project is presented .
Introduction
In Ras El bar and the 10th of Ramadan city there are 15000 & 71244 consumers respectively, taking into consideration that the total numbers of consumers in ( NDEDC ) & ( CEDC ) are 2168000 & 2104171 respectively.
( NDEDC ) & ( CEDC ) sectioned these custmoers in the two cities geographically into one & four commercial sectors ( Ras El bar ) & ( North, south, east, west ) respectively .The power meters used are electromechanical meters not long ago ( NDEDC ) & ( CEDC ) started to use electronic meters .
The two companies has undertaken a pilot project to install 1500 & 129 customer prepaid meters to satisfy some facilities such as :
· statistical customer database .
· The energy sales with very high accuracy .
· The energy consumption indepentant of both readers and customers .
· Energy readings are recoreded periodically.
· Preventing of trials of illegal access to the meter.
· Fast cost recovery .
· Greatly improves consumer service .
· Enables consumers to control their usage and costs .
· Reduces power usage and wastage .
· Immediate elimination of manual meter reading costs .
· Immediate elimination of customer billing costs .
· Immediate elimination of non-payments .
The outcome of the program is to facilitate the analysis of the consumption .
1- Pre- paid meter system
In order to use electricity, The consumer should purchase an electricity credit card ( smart card ) at a designated pre-payment station. The smart card is programmed with a sepcific quantity of electric energy, which the consumer pays for before hand. The consumer then inserts the smart card into their meter. The meter reads the smart card and then loads the electricity credit. The meter always shows the amount of credit remaining. Before the credit has expired the consumer should return to the pre-payment station and purchase additional credit .
The pre-paid meter system cosists of the following components :
· vending station. ( VS )
· Management software. ( MS )
- Database .
· Smart card .
· Prepaid electronic meter .
The system is designed for theortical life-time of more than 20 years, and is manufactured under strict quality assurance, ensurig the highest standerd of accuracy and reliability in order to meet IEC internaitional recommedations.
1-1 Vending station (VS )
Customers charge the smart cards through ( VS ) which is normally located at the utility service center . One ( VS ) can serve up to 2500 consumers, set of vending stations can be linked together through a PC server .
The ( VS ) is a PC loaded with management software ( MS ) database, printer, and smart card reader .
1-2 Management software ( MS )
The pre-payment system is managed by ( MS ) which allows the electricity utility to manage the whole operation confidently .
The ( MS ) is characterized by several features on top of which are the following :
· The high level of security which confines access to predefined operators to login into the (MS) system with different access levels.
· The highly international sophisticated Data Encryption Standard (DES),which protects the system and smart cards from illegal piracy .
· Blocking meter and smart card at events of fraud detection .
· The highly flexiable reports which could be customized to cover different electricity utilities requirements .
· Automatic system check is performed before each customer charging transaction .
· The (MS) offers a variety of stantard reports about the daily sales of electricity by the different vending operators and inspection report for customers who are late for their expected charging dates. In addition to a report of customers with illegal meters tampering history .
· The data controlled by the software through the (VS) and the smart cards includes :
- Time-of-use (TOU) data .
- LCD displayed data (display sequence).
- Billing data .
- Meter diagnostics, such as updating the date and time, closing the power switch, etc..
- Updating all variable meter parameters, including : emergency credit limit, data display format,etc
1-3 Smart card
Customers charge their meters by two way communications (to/from the meter ) smart cards which have a memory carrying their meter number, meter reading, monthly consumption and meter status .
The moment smart card is inserted into the (VS), the system downloads all data on smart card memory then charges the smart card with the amount of money paid accompanied by any change in the meter parameter as new traiff, power limit, or alarm duration, etc…
Once the customer charges his meter by the amount paid, the meter downloads all the parameters from the smart card to the meter, and uploads the latest meter data to the smart card through the two way communication system.
1-4 Prepaid meter
The prepaid meter is designed to cover different customers demands, with no change in accuracy level of class (1) .
The prepaid meters are protected against frauds and are easily operated with lowest customer skills through simple commands on the meter display. The meter allows the customer to manage his monthly budged by displaying the remaining credit in days depending on each customers average consumption .
The prepaid meter is fully electronic programmable, electricity consumption is measured directly by a solid-state component .
2- Pilot project
(NDEDC) has been started this project by 1500 prepaid meters (10-40 Amp) in Ras El bar city as a first stage, after completing this stage sucessfully, the 2nd stage with 1000 prepaid meters is already started from one month ago . some of these prepaid meters (684 meters) has been installed instead of the existing electromechanical meters, other quantity (816 meters) has been installed for new consumers. Two (VS) are serving the whole customers .
(CEDC) has been started by (129) prepaid meters (10-40 Amp) in the 10th of Ramadan city as a pilot stage, i.e the prepaid meters has been installed in series with the existing electromechanical meters to have the best chance for evaluation. one (VS) is serving the whole customers.
3- Evaluation
Of course duing every step of this pilot project, we has been faced by some problems such as : detection in smart card itself, purchasing an additional credit in (VS) could not be done without returning back again to the meter and the needed commercial data is not exactly completed ,….etc.
Finally the prepiad meters pilot project has a good results, and the system has so many advantages as previously mentioned in the introduction .
But we still have two main problems :
· The 1st is tecchnical one which occurs in condition that there are an internal fault in the meter itself, in this case there is no reference to the consumption exactly. The question now is how the meter be blocked and hence the electricity be off ?, hence the customer will contact the utility and then the problem can be known and solved .
· The 2nd is commercial one, the matter is there is no way to determine the monthly saled energy exactly, due to fact that it can be determined from the beginning date till the last purchased credit date including the consumption in the last & updating month respectively .
Now we have some trials and efforts to get a solution by developing the software .
4-Conclusion
The prepaid meter system provides state of the technology art, security for personals, historical usage data, power outage reporting for Electric Distribution Company, fast cost recovery and greatly improves customers service .
The prepiad meter system is intended and will be implemented for household, light commerical & industrial consumers, the touristic villages which are distant and the occuption is low and seasonal, farms and seasonal consumers .
References
[1] Electronic KWH power meters smart card payment.
copy Rights 1999 Digital Meters company
Biography
Speaker : Mohamed Mounier Mohamed Ali – engineer.
Position : General Manger of Meters & Insruments.
Company : Canal Electricity Distribution Company ( CEDC ).
Country : Egypt.
Mohamed Mounier is General Manger of Canal Electricity Distribution Company. He is a member of Egyption Engineers Syndicate. After graduating from Cairo University with B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering 1971 , warked as Engineer in Ministry of Electricity and Energy – the Rural Electrification Authority and ( CEDC ) . He was involved in the development of the High , medium and low voltage electrical networks and finaly the development of the multi-tarif meters which was used by ( CEDC ) for a project involving the installation of 500 meters. He was promoted to Senior Engineer in 1977 , Managing Director in 1989 and then Genereal Manger in 1999 . Mohamed Mounier is a 1989 graduate of Ein Shams University where he completed his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering.
Company Background Information
Company : Canal Elictricity Distribution company ( CEDC )
Country : Egypt
In recognition of several years of leading work in electric distribution networks within the Egypt Electricity Authority, the Ministry of the electricity and energy decided to consolidate this experience into a center of excellence . This decision led in 1978 , to establishment of the Canal Electricity Distribution Company , which is now located in Ismailia city .
Since 1978 , ( CEDC ) has grown in both size and reputation , attracting funding support from a range of sources , both nationally and internationally , to support its projects and activities .
Through its activities it provides a resorce for better policy – making and practical implementation in the field of electric distribution networks.