Zesa smart meters set to reduce load-shedding
April 28, 2013 in Business
THE Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) has partnered with the
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) and a
local company to roll out smart meter technology expected to reduce
load-shedding in the commercial sector.
Report by Ndamu Sandu
The move comes at a time generation capacity is unable to meet demand
resulting in power blackouts.
A smart meter refers to an electrical gadget which records sales of
electricity and allows a two-way communication line between the consumer and
supplier of electricity.
The partnership has roped in Echelon, one of the world’s biggest suppliers
of smart meters. Echelon is working with its local partners, Connect the
World. Echelon has the biggest footprint in terms of smart meter deployment
in the world.
Connect The World managing director Ben Mavedzenge said the technology
typifies the use of ICTs to manage supply and demand and in the process
converting a grid into an internet protocol.
“Accessibility to information is as ubiquitous as one with an internet
account. Any person can access the account and see how they are consuming
electricity,” he said.
The power utility recently in-stalled in households prepaid metres,
replacing conventional billing system that had been posing challenges as
consumers were not paying up.
“It [prepaid meters] addresses the cashflow issues for utilities. It can’t
tell you the upsurge or voltage drop. Because of that, it is called a dumb
meter. Smart metering involves two-way communication. It can report you back
to the server if one tampers with it,” Mavedzenge said.
Owen Masaraure, ZNCC’s energy efficiency engineer and project manager told
Standardbusiness that the use of the technology came after the realisation
that the solution to “the current power cuts is not only from the supply
side of the grid but also lies on the fact that industry and commerce was
not being responsible enough to account for all that is being fed from the
grid”.
Masaraure said the use of smart meters was motivated by an urgent need to
manage the country’s peak demand after realising that the power shortfalls
of 800MW is a result of poor load management by industry.
“About 60% of this peak demand can be curtailed, hence smart metering
technology would be ideal to manage such a large peak demand to considerable
margins, thus reducing the power import bill as well as cutting by almost
half in new capacity generations, being touted in most public circle and
requiring large volumes in cash investments,” he said.
He said smart metering technology will enable the regulatory authority to
carry out national power audits on continuous basis with a view to
synchronise tariffs with variations in seasonal demands or coming up with a
cost based tariff regime.
How does industry benefit from smart meters?
Masaraure said companies on maximum demand can reduce by close to almost 40%
on this tariff through load management programmes, since this technology is
integrated to provide information for such a platform.
“Companies are imposed to part three types of tariffs, that is peak hour
rate, off-peak rate and standard rate and can be in a position to reduce the
much expensive peak hour rate, currently hovering above US$0,12 per unit,
through load curtailment programmes, or rather peak shaving arrangements
using the very smart metering technology. We are estimating that between
5%-20% savings can be achieved on peak demand charge to those exposed to
such a tariff,” he said.
Efficient use of electricity means that the country would save on imports.
On average the power utility generates 1194MW and imports 55MW.
Masaraure said company executives or engineers will be enabled to manage
their energy usage outside their business premises, as well as accessing
their cost of electricity after usage at any time without prejudice from the
power utility.
“There is also reduction in load shedding through improved load management
programmes resulting in savings there by feeding back into the grid,” he
said.
The technology is also envisaged to improve energy audits to the corporate
world, thereby empowering management to formulate energy policies that
enable them to invest monies into energy upgrades.