Prepaid Meters Research Articles

Application of Intelligent Agents in Wireless Prepaid Energy Meter

Prepaid meter (PM) is getting very popular especially in developing countries. There are many advantages to use prepaid meter as opposed to postpaid meter both to the utility provider and to the consumer. Brunei has adopted PM but it is not intelligent and not wireless enabled. Reading meters and topping up balance are still done manually. Utility provider does not have information on the usage statistics and has only limited functionalities in the grid control. So accordingly an intelligent agent based wireless prepaid energy meter been developed using JADE-LEAP Agent development kit allowing agent from utility provider to query wireless energy meter for energy values for every household. These statistics can be used for statistical computation of the power consumed and for policy and future planning. Agent from consumers’ mobile devices can query the energy meter to study the power consumed and for topping up the balance. When the meter reaches the threshold, agent at energy meter would also send messages to alert consumers for topping up through mobile handset and failing to do so will lead to power being cut automatically

Justice, fuel poverty and disabled people in England

This paper considers the relationship between fuel poverty, disabled people, and policy changes in England, drawing on concepts of justice to deconstruct and explain empirical findings. Drawing on statistical analyses of the English Housing Survey, the paper presents three key findings. Firstly that fuel poverty rates in England are typically higher amongst households containing disabled people; secondly that high levels of fuel poverty are found amongst single disabled people of working age; and thirdly, that a greater proportion of households containing disabled people are on prepayment meters compared to other households. These distributional inequalities are explored in terms of ‘justice as recognition’. The paper concludes that the distributive inequalities evident in the findings may have been driven by a lack of recognition by energy policy makers in terms of their understanding of the highly varied needs of disabled people, the impact of current measures of fuel poverty, and the way in which disability benefits are understood within calculations of fuel poverty. Moreover, it is argued that current political rhetoric that typically marginalises disabled people of working age on low incomes has further driven distributional inequalities.

Assessing the consumers’ willingness to adopt a prepayment metering system in Nigeria

Despite the rising popularity in the adoption and usage of prepayment meters, little is still known about the drivers of its adoption. We examine the willingness to adopt prepayment metering (PPM) for a sample of Nigerian households that were not prepayment users. Double-hurdle models were estimated to account for households’ decisions concerning billing system switching behaviour and households’ willingness to pay (WTP). The estimated results revealed that decisions to adopt a prepayment meter are significantly affected by current electricity spending, current billing method and the split incentive problem. Whereas current electricity spending significantly increased the tendency to adopt PPM, the split incentive problem reduced the probability of adoption. Although unmetered consumers were more likely to express a willingness to adopt a PPM system than post-paid customers, they did not intend to pay a significantly higher amount to obtain the prepayment service. Income did not play a significant role in decision-making concerning PPM adoption and the corresponding WTP amount. These results cast doubt on the validity of the widely held belief that low income may be responsible for PPM adoption, reflecting the widespread usage of PPM by low-income households.

Pay as You Go: Prepaid Metering and Electricity Expenditures in South Africa

High rates of customer default on utility bills present a barrier to the expansion of electricity access in the developing world. Pre-paid electricity metering offers a technological solution to ensuring timely payment. Using an eleven-year panel of pre-paid electricity customers in Cape Town, South Africa, we describe patterns of purchase behavior across property values, our measure of socioeconomic status. Poorer households buy electricity more often, in smaller increments, and are most likely to buy on payday. These patterns suggest difficulties smoothing income, and reveal a preference for small, frequent purchases that is incompatible with a standard monthly electricity billing cycle.

Fuel poverty, policy, and equity in New Zealand: The promise of prepayment metering

Fuel poverty is a complex and pervasive policy problem, in part due to the difficulty of identifying households experiencing fuel poverty to target for remedial action. This paper explores the extent to which the use of prepayment metering for electricity can be used as a proxy for identifying fuel poor households. We hypothesised that as prepayment metering in New Zealand is typically used by low-income households, yet is a more expensive payment method; households using prepayment metering have constrained choices and are at higher risk of fuel poverty than the general population. To explore this question, we used information from multiphase mixed methods research on prepayment meter use, which included two postal surveys, complemented by data from an interview study, to explore three different methods of measuring fuel poverty. We conclude that as households using prepayment metering are experiencing greater levels of fuel poverty using all three measurements, prepayment metering can be used as a useful proxy for targeting remedial fuel poverty policy in New Zealand.

Social norms, trust and control of power theft in Uganda: Does bulk metering work for MSEs?

Power theft is still rampant in many developing countries. Governments and utility providers tend to favor technical solutions, neglecting the socio-economic dimension. This article analyzes the interaction between the socio-economic factors trust, informal social norms, awareness and electricity pricing effect and technical control measures in Uganda. After reforming its power sector, Uganda introduced two technical innovations: bulk metering for micro and small enterprises (MSE) and prepaid metering for households. The bulk metering system imposes a strong form of social control among MSEs. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 29 MSEs and 16 experts in Uganda, this article shows how well bulk metering works in practice. It finds that trust is key in the relations between electricity user and utility provider, between citizens and government overseeing the energy sector as well as within bulk metering groups of MSEs. The electricity price impacts MSEs' ability to pay and to some extent also their willingness to pay. Finally, power theft used to be accepted as an informal social norm. Change is happening, but is currently undermined by corruption and patronage networks in the energy sector and the political system, impacting people's attitude to compliance – regardless of the privatization of the electricity sector.

Tenants Right to Have Energy-Landlords are Not Suppliers of Electricity

The court ordered a Johannesburg landlord Young Ming Shan CC to repay tenants service charges levied against them since May 2009. The court also directed the landlord to provide each tenant, on demand, a copy of its monthly account from City Power.The owner or landlord who installs cable network and individual pre-paid electricity meters or separate meters that work off the (bulk) credit meter, does not become a supplier of electricity. The Gauteng Rental Housing Tribunal’s findings confirmed by the south Gauteng high court.

An Exploratory Study of Effects of Prepaid Metering and Energy Related Behaviour among Ghanaian Household

The focus of the study is to examine the effect of a new billing and payment system (prepaid meters) by Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) on the efficiency of revenue mobilization, its impacts on expenditure of several households groups and the behaviour of the consumers. Based on a survey of 384 households from the Ho municipality in the Volta Region of Ghana, our empirical analysis suggest the utility provider experiences a significant increase in its revenue after the introduction of prepaid metering system. However, the study did not find any difference in the expenditure between single and compound households. Furthermore, there was a strong shift by consumers towards energy conserving attitude and behaviour.

Integrated Electricity Tarrif Model for Kenya

Tariffs and tariff structures has been changing over a period of time all over the world. This has acted as a key factor which limits development in third world country. This project therefore seeks to detemine the best tarrif model that can be used in kenya to improve on the electricy consumption, the research explores all the factors which affect the costing of electrical energy. The tariff model is developed considering fuel prices, the economic factors such as inflation and the puchasing power of the consmers ,and the other factors asssociated with sytem costs ie capital cost and running costs above all these it seeks to elliminate the electricty energy poverty by encouraging many consumers to connect to the grid. In additon, some recent developments and significant trends in distribution and pricing of the electrical enegy such as pre-paid metering . It is expected that this will help Kenya to develop better tariff structures and more reasonable charging rates. The research uses the data provided by the KPLC to analyse the consumer puchasing trends and and uses the current tarrif sytem as a reference to see how best the power company can supply the energy to the country at a cost which is balanced and which encourages industrial development. The resaerch develops a tarrif model which is gradual in nature and one which excludes the fixed changes but the consumers are charged on a gradual basis where the price will increase with the increase of the Kwh consumed.

Non-revenue water and cost recovery in urban India: the case of Bangalore

This paper examines the issue of non-revenue water (NRW) in urban India, taking the city of Bangalore as a case study. Using empirical evidence from a survey conducted among 601 low-income households in Bangalore, we investigate the major sources of NRW for water utilities and propose policy recommendations based on the analysis. Our key finding is that public stand posts and public wells, which supply free water, are a non-trivial source of NRW. In addition, we find that revenue generation from metered tap connections is sub-optimal. Further, we observe potential revenue being shifted away from the public water utilities toward private providers, as several households pay for water obtained from neighbours, tankers, or other private sources. Drawing upon our findings, we propose a new tariff structure for urban water utilities to consider. We also review the implementation of pre-payment metering for public stand posts in other developing countries and its feasibility in Bangalore.

Design and Assemble of Low Cost Prepaid Smart Card Energy Meter – A Novel Design

In India, presently distribution companies are collecting revenues from their consumers by metering and billing. The expenses for metering, billing, and collecting dues became complex as electricity is supplied to large number of consumers located in far-flung areas, resulted in high cost per unit. This may encourage consumers to fudge meter readings. To address these problems, distribution companies can opt prepaid smart card energy meter, which overcomes the whole problems associated with the present billing system and will make the consumer more conscious about usage electricity. This paper explores the design and assemble of smart card prepaid electricity meter system, which enables the consumer to buy required amount of energy and also provides information about their credit balance. A prototype of the system has been developed with the state-of-the-art digital and information technology and proven to be stable, reliable, tamper resistant, low cost, and easy maintenance. Electricity is a major source of energy in the world and used in every civilized country for domestic, commercial and industrial purpose. Recently owing to raise in number of new housing, commercial and industrial developments in India, the number of consumers of electricity have been increased in the network distribution. The monthly power bill for consumers is calculated from post-paid meter reading based on the electricity consumption. But the disadvantage of this system is that meter readers are needed to visit every door to door to read the meter for billing purposes. This is a tiresome, lengthy and error prone process. Moreover, there is a chance for consumers as well as meter readers to do the corruption. In post-paid system (1), the monthly bill sent to the consumer by mail in the beginning of the month and all the consumers often need to gather in a long queue to pay the bills. This procedure is tiresome and time consuming. In this paper, a prepaid metering (PPM) system (2) has been proposed. Each consumer has to install digitally designed prepaid electricity meter along with smart card in their home, office or industry. Based on the electricity utilization the credit will be deducted automatically from the smart card. When the credit goes below the threshold value, the meter gives warning icons and if credit reaches to zero the meter will automatically cut off the power supply. The consumer has to go to the vending station with the smart card and money to buy electricity. In the vending station, user can buy the credit to his smart card by paying the money. Then the consumer will insert the smart card to the meter and the meter will be recharged. In prepaid billing system, the consumer will be always conscious about the remaining credit and thus try to use electricity carefully and stop its misuse. Furthermore, in contrast with post-paid billing, the consumer can buy credit at any time in the month from the vending station.

Level of Cooperativeness of Individuals to Issues of Energy Conservation

Zimbabwe like many other developing nations has energy supply that is less than energy demand. This entails prioritization and increased prices economically, however as energy is a basic need, a different approach is called for. The goal of human development needs to be achieved, which has seen some programmes like rural electrification being undertaken. The study uses a questionnaire approach on a sample of 200 people, to check and analyse their approach to energy use in the economy. A probit model is used to determine the individual factors that affect energy conservation. The study found that age, household size, energy bills and gadget purchase behaviour all explains energy conservation. The study found income, gender and residential status insignificant in explaining the level of cooperativeness of individuals to energy conservation. The study also analyse the effect of recently introduced prepaid electricity meters on energy conservation.

The Effects of the Introduction of Prepayment Meters on the Energy Usage Behaviour of Different Housing Consumer Groups in Kitwe, Zambia

This paper is based on research conducted in Kitwe, Zambia on the effects of the introduction of prepayment meters on the energy usage behaviour of domestic consumers in the Low, Medium and High Income categories. The research was motivated by the fact that there is very little information that exists on the subject not just in Zambia but world-wide. The paper has identified some key issue vis-a-viz: behavioral change as a result of the introduction of the prepayment meters, debt recovery and reduction of pilferage, disconnection of consumers and alternative energy sources and feedback. The data was collected in Kwacha (Low Income), Ndeke (Medium Income) and Parklands (High Income). This was both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data was collected through structured questionnaires of which 151 were collected in total as follows: 59 (Kwacha); 50 (Ndeke) and 42 (Parklands). The qualitative data was collected through detailed interviews conducted with four households in each of the three household categories.The major findings are that there is general satisfaction from the households on the introduction of the prepayment meters citing control over expenditure and no disputes on bills as the main reasons. Many of the households also reported an improvement in their budgeting for electricity and there seems to have been a drop in the numbers of households with historical debt. Many households in Ndeke and Kwacha reported spending less on electricity after the introduction of the prepayment meters which has been attributed to the fact that they are no longer on flat tariffs and also they are now able to conserve electricity as they are more conscious about expenditure on the same. Many households in Ndeke and Kwacha also reported being disconnected because they run out of credit due to lack of money. Rationing was also reported to be actively being used by households in Ndeke and Kwacha as a way of extending their credit in times when they do not have money to buy credit. Disconnections and rationing were not widely reported in Parklands as households there are not stressed with expenditure on electricity. This is because the people in Ndeke spend twice as much on electricity (as a proportion of their income) as do those in Parklands. The expenditure by households in Kwacha is even more so. Finally, the study has found that 21% of all the households have moved from using electricity for cooking to charcoal. This is likely to have some negative consequences for the environment as it might lead to deforestation. It is strongly recommended that a study be done on this subject to establish the true impact of this switch from electricity to charcoal by households.

Residential Power Load Forecasting

The prepaid electric power metering market is being driven in large part by advancements in and the adoption of Smart Grid technology. Advanced smart meters facilitate the deployment of prepaid systems with smart prepaid meters. A successful program hinges on the ability to accurately predict the amount of energy consumed on a daily basis for each end user. This method of forecasting is called Residential Power Load Forecasting (RPLF). This paper describes the systems engineering (SE) processes and tools that were used to develop a recommended load prediction model for the project sponsor, SmartGridCIS. The basic concept is that power is treated similar to a prepaid telephone in a “pay as you go” fashion. Modeling techniques explored in the analysis of alternatives (AoA) include Fuzzy Logic, Time Series Moving Average, and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). SE tools such as prioritization and Pugh matrices were used to choose the best-fit model, which ended up being the ANN. Cognitive systems engineering was used in conjunction with the task analysis. Requirements were developed using the commercial tool IBM Rational DOORS®.

The influence of electricity prepayment meter use on household energy behaviour

Abstract Fuel poverty is a pervasive social and public health problem in New Zealand and households using prepayment metering are at increased risk. Although it is more expensive in New Zealand, households using prepayment metering previously reported high levels of satisfaction with using prepayment and increased budgetary control of energy use. This paper reports on a longitudinal interview study of consumers, who were either using prepayment metering or experiencing difficulty paying their electricity bills to explore how prepayment metering influences household budgeting and management of electricity use. Householders reporting sociotechnical interactions with prepayment meters were provided with increased feedback that influenced budgeting and management of household energy use. Unfortunately, this feedback encouraged householders experiencing severe hardship to take extreme measures when restricting their energy use. The study highlights that better regulation of the presently market-led electricity prepayment metering systems used in New Zealand could reduce the disadvantages while capturing the potential benefits of using prepayment metering for consumers.

TRAVELING TECHNOLOGIES: Infrastructure, Ethical Regimes, and the Materiality of Politics in South Africa

In this article, I explore the politics of infrastructure in South Africa by focusing on the “travels” of a small technical device. Since the end of apartheid, prepaid meters have been widely deployed in South Africa's townships to curb the nonpayment of service charges. Yet many residents have bypassed their meters, enabling them to illicitly access electricity or water. I track the micro-political battle between residents tinkering with the technology and engineers trying to secure it, arguing that infrastructure itself becomes a political terrain for the negotiation of central ethical and political questions concerning civic virtue and the shape of citizenship. To investigate this techno-political terrain, I trace a genealogy of the meter from Victorian Britain, when it was invented as a tool of working-class “moral improvement,” to the late-apartheid period, when it was re-assembled as a device of counterinsurgency against the anti-apartheid “rent boycotts.” In each moment, I suggest, the meter was harnessed to distinct ethical regimes and political projects. Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork with engineers in contemporary South Africa, I explore the semiotic-material work required to make the device functional in the post-apartheid moment. Tracing the travels of a small technical device across time and space, I argue, opens up conceptual space to rethink the relationship between ethics, politics, and technics.

Prepaid Meter in Nigeria: The Story so Far and the Way Forward

The prepaid meter was introduced in Nigeria to aid revenue collection and generation by Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in 2006 as well as abolished meter reading and estimated billing. Since its introduction there are still some challenges being faced by consumers and the power network operator. In this paper, we examined the Nigeria power sector, prepayment meter, advantages and disadvantages of the prepaid meter and smart meter in Nigeria. Finally, we make some recommendations.

Factors influencing selection of drinking water technologies for urban informal settlements in Kampala

AbstractAccess to drinking water in urban informal settlements of developing countries still remains a challenge for the poor and depends on technology selected. This paper determines the score on criteria used for technology selection by two major stakeholders in the water service delivery chain, the users and the utility. The criteria are: affordability to connect, affordability of consumption, method of payment, ease of operation, ease of spare parts acquisition, access distance, access time, generating sufficient water continuously, service coverage, the possibility of cost recovery and security of installation (SOI). The study was carried out in Bwaise II and Kisenyi III, two informal settlements in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Through a household survey and semistructured interviews of key informants, data were collected for the score on these criteria of four piped water distribution technologies: public water points (PWPs) with conventional meters, PWPs with prepaid meters, house connections and yard taps. Using multicriteria methods and preference elicitation by pair wise ranking, the most preferred factor for technology selection from the users' point of view is affordability to connect, while from the utility's point of view, it is SOI. These preferences were confirmed by data from focus group discussions and in‐depth interviews.

Single-Phase Prepayment Meter Based on RFID+STS

The emergence of the radio frequency type prepayment meter will guide the inhabitant energy meter management toward automation from IC card management and the artificial metering work. In this paper, it introduces the principle of the single-phase prepayment meter based on radio frequency identification (RFID), develops a method of energy sale management that integrates radio frequency identification and IEC62055-41 standard transfer specification (STS), and designs its hardware and software. This design makes full use of the advantages that radio frequency card is passivity and non-contact, and STS is a sound and versatile specification. The production practices shows that the radio frequency card reads and writes stably, has strong ability of anti-interference, delivers data credibly, and the management is real-time and convenience.

Rationalisation of the Tariff Structure of the Board as per National Tariff Policy – A Suggested Framework

Overview of the legal position governing tariff determination,review of the existing patterns and methods.
Rearranging of slab-wise consumption of domestic category based on usage of energy per day.
Introduction of fixed charge to domestic category.
Geographical differentiation of tariff. Reduction of number of LT side categories.
Subsidy, prepaid meters
High voltage consumers. State Load Despatch Centre of electricity tariff in view of the changed legal environment of Electricity Act 2003.