Have a host of electrical gadgets at home and is worried about their safety during voltage fluctuations? Vexed with going to the electricity office every month to pay your bill? Relax, smart energy meters, installed for the first time in the State on an experimental basis in Visakhapatnam, promise a solution.
“A total of 100 smart meters have been installed at different locations, parallel to the old (existing meters) for 95 single phase consumers and 5 three phase consumers in Zone-1. The smart meters are electronically controlled,” says A.V.V. Surya Pratap, Superintending Engineer of Eastern Power Distribution Company of AP Limited (AP EPDCL).
“Consumers can pay their electricity charges just like they do in the case of prepaid mobile phones. They will have to maintain some balance in the prepaid card and use it to pay their electricity bill. The consumers will be alerted when their balance is low and there will be no disconnection of service during nights,” Mr. Surya Pratap told The Hindu, when asked about the new meters on Friday.
“The smart energy meters have a host of consumer-friendly features like enabling the consumer to know the units of power consumed at 15-minute intervals, monitoring of voltage fluctuation and the time of such fluctuation. This will enable the consumer to file claims in the event of gadgets like TVs and fridges getting damaged during fluctuations. Similarly, DISCOMS can also benefit as any pilferage of power can be detected easily,” Sridhar Reddy P, CEO of IBOT Energy Systems India Private Limited, told The Hindu.
“We have completed three cycles of recharging to check the data flow. Only in one or two of the 100 places, where the smart meters were installed, the network signal is weak and measures will be taken to rectify them,” he says.
‘Unmanned sub-station’
“The consumer is also saved the prospect of going to the consumer service centre every month and the DISCOM can do away with the issue of paper bills to the consumer every month. Further, we (IBOT) have also set up an ‘unmanned sub-station’ at Gidijala village, on the outskirts of the city. The sub-station supplies free power for agriculture from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and afterwards the three-phase supply is converted into single phase remotely from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) office, eliminating the need for manual intervention,” Mr. Sridhar Reddy added.
