Kazang offers Cameroon electricity prepayment meters

The South African company Kazang has just presented tenders for the establishment of a platform for the management of prepaid electricity meters in Cameroon.

This initiative, for over a year, falls within the specified electrical connections construction projects "Preretd" and "Pererins", led by the company's heritage Electricity Development Corporation (EDC) and the rural electrification Agency (EAR).

"Kazang proposes, inter alia, the implementation of a hardware computer TPM obeying international standards, the sale of computer software platform, the assignment of ATMs and other devices produces tickets of "energy credit" as well as the training of personnel in charge of the system for a better transfer of technology.

For (ARSEL) electricity sector regulatory agency, the offer is interesting because it allows to test the resolution of certain problems in the sector including overbilling, the difficulties of payment and good number of other commercial difficulties facing ENEO, subsidiary of the Actis British investment fund operator.

The presentation of the said offers, we learned has a few related limitations including the taking into account of the Cameroonian tariff structure, which takes into account the number of kilowatt consumed monthly.

In July 2013, the ARSEL launched a notice of solicitation for expressions of interest for the implementation of a pilot project on smart meters.

It was, at first, to assess the expected impact of the approach on tax, economic, fiscal, environmental and social, but also to assess such impact on the performance of the sector, to adapt the regulatory and legislative environment to current harmonious deployment of the program, choose technologies most appropriate to develop standards on the device contemplated and also to target manufacturers wishing to settle in Cameroon.

At the end of two national surveys conducted in 2011 and 2012 from subscribers of the public electricity service, the ARSEL had concluded that the commercial service and same technique currently provided by the operator was disparaged by subscribers in response, during outages and other damage on the network.

The ARSEL also noted a lack of reliability in the invoicing, the currently used meter performance, a method of payment of the invoices which is tedious and a little varied causing a high losses on the network.