Emma Okonji
Worried about the high rate of electricity theft in the country, through illegal connectivity, amounting to over 60 per cent loss in revenue generation to electricity distribution companies (Discos), the CWG Plc, one of the licenced metre asset providers, has said the solution to the revenue loss suffered by the power investors is to ensure that all households, offices and shops have the smart metering system installed in their premises.
The Chief Executive Officer of CWG, Mr. James Agada, gave the advice during the recent launch of the 1.5 megawatts mini off-grid independent power project in Sura Shopping Complex located in Lagos.
According to Agada, CWG produced and supplied the smart metering systems for the Sura Independent Power Project, which is a mini off-grid power project, called the Energising Economies Initiate (EEI), an initiative of the federal government that targets micro, small and medium (MSMEs), with the objective of supporting the rapid development of off-grid decentralised electricity solutions that will provide clean and consistent power to economic clusters, through private sector developers.
The project, which is being implemented by Rural Electrification Agency (REA) and Solad, comes with smart metering system that is supplied by CWG, a technology solution company.
Agada said CWG could assist Discos is putting an end to electricity theft and estimated billing, through its smart metering system.
“The metres that we supply are capable of doing both input measurement and consumption measurement, and this will help determine the capacity of power that is being channelled to a particular area and the power consumption capacity on a daily basis in that area.
“CWG is one of the licensed metre asset providers, and we are in discussion with Discos, to help them provide metering system for their power distribution and consumption. It will help them understand the measurement of the power factor and know what each customer is consuming and this can be measured in real time,” Agada said.
According to him, some losses could either be technical hitches from faulty transformer or deliberate loss through illegal tapping and connection of electricity supply.
He however said with the CWG metering system, the Discos can control such losses from the monitoring location which CWG provides, from where they could monitor realtime, the input and output of electricity consumption.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who commissioned the mini off-grid power station in Sura Shopping Complex, said: “This is a special federal government project and we are happy that we are accomplishing the task. After Sura Shopping Complex in Lagos, we will focus attention on Ariaria market in Abia State, Sabon Gari market in Kano and Balogun market in Lagos. All these are markets where SME businesses are thriving and government will continue to support them.”
The Chairman, Market Association, Sura Shopping Complex, Mrs. Bunmi Ajayi, said since the shopping complex was powered with off-grid electricity, the traders have enjoyed steady electricity supply that has improved their businesses tremendously.
