The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) at the weekend commissioned its €2.2million Integrated Commercial Management Systems (InCMS) project designed to reduce commercial losses.
The chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Prof. James Momoh, who commissioned the service in Abuja, said the system will help the company to improve the quality of services it renders to customers and allows the customers to use electricity efficiently.
The NERC’s boss said “will in prove the quality of service in terms of the energy you use and reduce losses. I believe it will also provide for us the opportunity of efficient energy usage.”
With the system, consumers of electricity may not leave on their power when it is unnecessary, he said, urging other distribution companies (DisCos) to take a cue from the AEDC.
According to him, the company has actualised what the commission has been advocating that the Discos should reduce losses, resolve complaints quickly and give consumers the human face they deserve.
The Managing Director, Engr. Ernest Mupwaya, who spoke with reporters after the commissioning, explained the InCMS is meant to manage all the company’s commercial operations, including customers’ service.
He said that it will provide value to both business and customers, stressing that from the customers’ point of view, “it will provide visibility in all customers’ activities so that we can enforce compliance in terms of meeting target and for processes to be respected.”
Mupwaya noted that “it is a system that covers all our franchise areas. We will be able to provide uniform service because we have visibility at every level of delivering service.”
Asked what it cost the firm to procure the system, the Managing Director said that “the cost of this system is roughly €2.2million. But even if it sounds expensive, the value which will be derived from the service will be much more than that.”
With the deployment of the service, Mupwaya said the firm will meet up with customers’ satisfaction, loyalty, which will increase their willingness to pay their bills.
He also noted the system can check power theft which occurs from meter installation loopholes. But with the system, the firm will now be able to view what is happening at every stage.
He insisted that “it is an intelligent system, which you can use to do energy balance. You would have known at a transformer level how much energy came out and how much was sold to the customers and where the gap is coming from.”
He submitted that the system will protect revenue losses by showing whether customers bypass the meters.
The Managing Director revealed that AEDC is currently installing the meters it procured at N10billion last year, noting the customers only need to register with the company that they need meters and they will receive them.
He also announced that the company has finished procuring the Meter Asset Provider process that the NERC introduced and it will start massive installation of the meters as soon as it gets the “no objection” approval from the commission.
