On the consumer front
Pakistan has around 23 million power consumers, 47 percent of which are domestic, 30 percent industrial, 11.4 percent agriculture and 7 percent are commercial consumers. The country can hardly replace 50 percent of total mechanical energy meter with more accurate digital/static meters due to financial constraints. Similar is the situation with other developed and developing countries. Till today no country can introduce modern smart metering technology across the board. Energy managers’ start upgrading their metering infrastructure from high end consumers and loss prone areas and Pakistan is no exception.
So far USAID has installed over 80 thousand AMR or smart meters in the country. USAID official shared some interesting anecdotes with me. He disclosed that in Lahore Electricity Supply Company (Lesco), Niaz Baig was among one of the most loss prone sub divisions. Lesco asked USAID staff to help utility company in averting these losses.
This sub division had total 17 feeders of which 12 were main load generators. USAID replaced electricity meters on these 12 feeders with modern static meters, which reduced distribution loss by over 2 percent.
Similarly, Multan Electricity Power Company (Mepco) has over 5 million power consumers of which one 20 thousand consumers have over 20KW load only. These 20 percent contribute nearly 50 percent of the revenue. Multan Circle, a smaller distribution area of Mepco, has 1.2 million consumers of which 13 thousand are tube well consumers having over 20KW load.
Similar is the situation with Vehari. USAID has started installing GSM based smart meters, with a provision to remotely cut off the supply in specific hours, to all tube well users. This intervention has already proved successful as consumers are stratified with their meter reading and utility company can better control the consumption. So far this project is underway and will be completed by August 2015.
USAID had similar intervention with Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) and 84 thousand static meters and 42 thousand RF based AMR meters, which helped the utility company to increase its revenue by nearly 50 percent. USAID is also working with power utility companies in Hyderabad and Faisalabad and producing similar results. By the end of this project USAID would have installed around 1.8 million static, AMR or smart meters in the country.
It’s all happening in Pakistan, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. In Qasimabad, (Hyderabad Sindh), power utility company had to face great resistance when their technician started replacing the old meters. Official numbers show that every year 52 million units were lost in distribution in this area alone. Some 1,500, ‘kundas’ or illegal connections were found.
Locals broke smart meters and removed SIM cards. In short, people showed great resistance against this new metering technology. Similar reactions were observed in some other parts of country too.
However, now that the technology is there USAID has trained Pakistani citizens who will run this new automatic metering infrastructure. Once the project will be completed it will be transferred to NPCC, DISCOs and Power Information Technology Company (PITC).
Read more: A start of something big
On the industrial landscape
Understanding the needs of tomorrow’s power sector Pakistani companies have also started localisation of these modern smart meters. Microtech Industries Limited (MTL) has been working with the USAID on this project and has developed a complete solution from manufacturing of AMR or smart meter to backend software controls. MTL Assistant Manager Business Development Ali Mohsin told me that MTL and some other companies are manufacturing these modern electric meters locally. Right now local industry is working on two technologies RF and GSM/GPRS.
Pak Elektron Limited (PEL) Project Manager AMR / AMI System Farrukh Mehmood said these smart meters work on the principle of static meter but with two additional modules for communication and control. He disclosed that PEL being one of the biggest manufacturers of power products and electrical equipment has successfully set up an assembly line for these modern meters. He underscored that local industry has capability to meet the new meters demand of Pakistan’s power sector.
What is best for Pakistan?
World over power utility companies rely on different communication technologies to gather data from smart meters, like RF, GSM/ GPRS, PLC, Mesh Networks, etc. But in Pakistan currently all players are focused on RF and GSM/GPRS technologies for obvious reasons. However, Asian Development Bank (ADB) is making a project for which PLC technology is being proposed, which is capable of transmitting data on power lines.
However, Lesco Project Manager Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Manager Procurement Akhtar Ali Chaudhry and other industry experts believe that Pakistan has one of the best cellular networks in the world. GSM/GPRS technology could be best for the country though it is slightly expensive than PLC. They argue that Pakistan’s power network has very high noise rates. Connections on power lines are not up to the mark. Attenuation on power lines is very high. In present circumstance it would be nearly impossible to roll out smart metering project on PLC technology.
Automation – a threat or an opportunity?
Like general public, field staff especially meter readers and line staff in power utility companies feel threatened by this automation. They argue if meters started sending their reading data to billing centres with greater accuracy and companies get power to remotely connect or disconnect power supply their jobs will become redundant. Their authority, their importance in society will be ruined. At some instances these people also showed resistance in installing AMR and smart meters.
Officials pointed out that initially USAID took nearly six months in installing a few thousand meters because utility company employees were reluctant. But once the system started functioning these people were very happy, as their jobs became easier. He revealed almost all RF meters installed in Pakistan transmit data through RF medium to nearby handheld RF reader. In certain areas meter readers have been provided Handheld Units (HHUs) to record meter reading in their areas.
They are happy because the need to write with pen or pencil has been eliminated. Earlier they had to work for long hours in the field, but now they can easily record meter reading data from a much larger area in a limited time and transfer it to computers at datacenter. The chances of inaccurate meter reading are almost zero.
Read more: Pakistan’s energy crisis – the real story
The downside
Though smart metering is one of the most significant innovations of 21st century, but still people have reservations against this technology. In several countries people staged demonstrations against installation of smart meters.
Some people claim that these smart meters produce very high radiation while sending or receiving data, which has very bad effects on their health. Though no country in the world has all smart meters in the country but in several countries on court’s order utility companies had to remove smart meter on consumer complaints.
Some companies have smart meter opt-out programs to avoid litigation. In 2013, an award winning filmmaker Josh Del Sol produced a documentary film, ‘Take Back Your Power’, in which smart meters were badly criticised.
However, in Pakistan, utility companies and industry experts claim that these meters are safe and do not effect public health. They argue that in Pakistan almost everybody carries a cell phone in his pocket or hand, if these cell phone do not harm humans then these meters would never do. Because these meters are installed on the outer parameters of the living premises.
Another reservation against smart metering technology is that in the west people consider these smart meters as spying devices. They argue that their privacy is being compromised with these meters because utility companies can constantly monitor energy consumption patterns of each and every consumer.
This data can help them to identify how many people are at home, which equipment they are using, etc. Different researches indicate more advance smart metering networks could also identify the brand and model of the smart equipment running on their networks. Later this data can be used for marketing and other purposes.
After the WikiLeaks revelation and news exposé of US National Security Agency (NSA) activities, reservation of US nationals and other western countries seem justified to some extent. However, in Pakistan, these reservations currently do not matter, but one day, once a complete system is in place different pressure groups, including worker unions and trade bodies, might raise a voice against this new technology.
This piece first appeared on MIT Technology Review Pakistan and has been reproduced with permission.
Imran Adnan is a writer, graphic designer and a 'techaholic'.