SHILLONG, Feb 25: Taking a leap towards innovation, the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) on Thursday introduced the smart meter project, which is designed to facilitate power supply to consumers efficiently. The project is sponsored by Asian Development Bank.
The first smart electricity meter was installed at the official residence of Power Minister James K Sangma while the second meter was set up at the residence of the chairman-cum-managing director of MeECL, Arunkumar Kembhavi.
The two pilot meters have found to be working without any technical issue for the last two days, meeting all necessary parameters, a statement issued here said.
In the coming months, the Power department plans to install nearly two lakh smart meters across Meghalaya under the project.
With smart meters, consumers would be able to see exactly how much and when they are using the energy, which will enable them to track and reduce power consumption as required.
Also, problems of under-billing, overbilling and non-billing would disappear and the public will need to pay for only what they are consuming. This new technology will help the department lower operational costs as no manual readings will be required; it will, in turn, help in increasing billing efficiency. The manpower used for manual readings will then be utilised to strengthen operations and maintenance.
It will also pave way for remote connection and disconnection without the lineman entering the premises as a two-way communication mechanism between the consumers and MeECL would be set up with the use of smart meters.
For options with regard to making payments, the smart meters come with both prepaid and postpaid facilities. However, the department will initially roll out postpaid operations only.
Moreover, the MeECL will be able to conduct power quality monitoring in near real-time taking into consideration factors such as maximum demand, voltage fluctuation, outage detection etc. Since smart meters are tamper-proof, they will send alert signals to the department if a person attempts to break the seal of the meter, thus preventing electricity theft.