Prepaid Energy Meter

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  • Topic: Electricity meter, Error, Money
  • Pages : 3 (785 words )
  • Download(s) : 1394
  • Published : August 5, 2010
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The present system of energy billing is error prone and also time and labor consuming. Errors get introduced at every stage of energy billing like errors with electro-mechanical meters, human errors while noting down the meter reading, and errors while processing the paid bills and the due bills. There are many cases where the bill is paid and then is shown as a due amount in the next bill. There is no proper way to know the consumer’s maximum demand, usage details, losses in the lines, and power theft. The major drawback of a post paid system is that there is no control of usage from the consumer’s side. There is a lot of wastage of power due to the consumers’ lack of planning of electrical consumption in an efficient way. Since the supply of power is limited, as a responsible citizen, there is a need to utilize electricity in a better and efficient way. The distribution company has to receive huge amounts in the form of pending bills, which results in substantial revenue losses and also hurdles to modernization because of lack of funds. The remedy for this drawback is prepaid energy billing, which could be titled “Pay first and then use”. There are clear results from many countries where a prepaid system has reduced the usage (wastage) by a large amount. Another advantage of the prepaid system is that the human errors made reading meters and processing bills can be reduced to a large extent. The billing system is minimally able to detect power theft and even when it does it is at the end of the month. Also, the distribution company is facing many problems in terms of losses. The distribution company is unable to keep track of the changing maximum demand for domestic consumers. The consumer is facing problems like receiving due bills for bills that have already been paid as well as poor reliability of electricity supply and quality even if bills are paid regularly. The remedy for all these problems is to keep track of the consumers...
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