Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will bring 1.05 million more users under smart prepaid meters coverage in the next three years to cut power system loss and bill dodging. 

A scheme titled ‘Smart pre-payment metering project in distribution zones of BPDP’ at an estimated cost of Tk 6.19 billion has been placed at the Planning Commission for approval from the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), official sources said.

BPDB incurs huge revenue loss every year as a large number of subscribers with conventional post-paid meters do not pay electricity bills on time.System losses are high in this system. Besides, there is no facility in the existing system to prevent meter tampering or the use of higher-than-approved load.

The Smart pre-paid metering system, on the other hand, will help cut the system losses while ensuring accurate bill collection at the same time, according to power officials.

In addition, the smart meters will automatically cut off the electricity line with a meter tempering signal, if more than the approved load is used by any subscriber, the officials added.

Once approved, BPDB is expected to replace the conventional post-paid meters with the smart pre-paid meters in selected areas of 12 districts falling under the state-run agency’s distribution network by February 2025.

The areas are Chattogram district’s Chattogram City Corporation, Sitakunda, Hathazari and Patia upazilas; Cox’s Bazar Sadar upazila, Bandarban sadar upazila, Rangamati sadar upazila, Khagrachhari sadar upazila, Cumilla City Corporation, Brahmanbaria sadar upazila, Feni sadar upazila, Kishorganj’s sadar, Bazitpur and Bhairab upazilas, Tangail sadar upazila, Mymensingh’s Fulpur upazila and Sylhet City Corporation.

Out of the estimated project cost, nearly Tk 3.29 billion is expected to come from Asian Development Bank (ADB) as loan and Tk 1.70 billion from the state coffer and the implementing agency will provide Tk 1.21 billion.With the scheme, BPDB expects to cut the system loss by 1 percent, ensure cent percent collection of bills and provide quick and hassle-free service to the subscribers.

The key project activity includes installation of 1.2 million single-phase smart pre-payment meters, 30,000 three-phase smart pre-payment meters, 8,831 Data Concentrator Unit (DCU) with enclosure box among others.

“Once the project is implemented, all the subscribers of 25 sales and distribution divisions under BPDB’s four distribution zones —Chattogram, Cumilla, Mymensingh and Sylhet—will come under smart prepaid meter coverage,” Planning Minister MA Mannan said.   

This will contribute to digitalization of power system, cutting system losses, saving electricity, improving quality of BPDB’s service as well as its bill collection, he hoped.

The country incurs 5-7 percent loss due to non-technical reasons at customer level such as tampering with the meter, illegal connection and so on, according to Power Division.

Various attempts have been made to address these vexing problems of non-technical losses such as contracting out meter reading and billing, computerized billing and cut-offs and legal penalties.

But nothing has been 100 percent successful so far. However, amongst all the efforts and endeavours, the one approach that proved to be consumer-friendly and cost-effective was the prepaid metering system.

The idea of using prepaid meters to stem the financial drain on Bangladesh power companies was born over 10 years ago. This was a result of collaboration between the BPDB and the KfW Entwicklungsbank, a German state-owned investment and development bank.

BPDB received a grant of 4.09 million Euros from the German government through KfW for the cost of a pilot prepaid metering project in Chittagong.

BPDB had introduced this pilot project in the port city Chittagong, before installing pre-paid meters across the country.

Six distribution companies will bring a total of 386,28,851 power consumers under a smart prepaid metering system within 2023.

The power division plans to install 88 lakh smart prepaid power meters across the country to ensure hassle-free service to consumer by 2022.

The power distribution companies completed the installation of some 38,71,124 smart prepaid meters till January 31, 2021.