via Zesa measuring electricity losses August 4, 2014 by Victoria Mtomba
THE Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company (ZETDC) is undertaking a study to measure its electricity losses amid revelations that 17% of power is vanishing annually.
ZETDC managing director Julian Chinembiri said under normal circumstances, 11% losses would be the acceptable benchmark for electricity losses.
“A project is underway to accurately determine the loss. We want to measure accurately our losses and then come up with measures to arrest those losses,” he said.
Chinembiri said the technical losses include the configuration of equipment for instance before dollarisation customers were buying equipment on their own which resulted in some cases wrong equipment being bought.
The non-technical problems would result when customers by pass meters resulting in no revenue collection on the part of Zesa.
He said that during a survey the power utility visited 5 851 suspected properties in Harare and 264 were found to have been tampered with and the customers were being prosecuted.
Chinembiri said the company sent nine people to Eskom South Africa to under study how the prepaid meters work.
The study comes at a time ZETDC has invested $15 million for Information Technology Solutions to improve its business performance and service delivery.
The power utility’s customer service centres across the country are now online using VSAT
and other technologies and plans were underway to install further systems that will improve the business operations and customer experience.
ZETDC revenue collection has been on an upward trend since 2009 when the country adopted the multi-currency.
Revenue collections by the transmission and distribution company took off in 2009 at $200 million rising to $800 million in 2012. It declined to $780 million in 2013.
The company however, said it recorded a 5% decline in collections in 2013 due to the harmonised elections when customers stopped paying bills in anticipation of a wholesale debt relief.
ZETDC is currently owed $944 million by various electricity debtors in the country.
The country is battling a crippling electricity shortage as generation cannot meet demand. The country is generating an estimated 1400MW daily against demand of over 2000MW.
Energy and Power Development minister Dzikamai Mavhaire told Parliament recently that power black-outs would continue until the completion of expansions and Hwange and Kariba Power Stations in 2017.
COMMENTS
Zpf has backtracked us to the stone ages. Pamberi mob justice
What a terrible joke by this manager who seems to be confused to say the least!!!You think more information will result in improved Zesa operations when the losses are mainly caused by your staff who are corrupt and inefficient.Some Zesa staff take their monthly electricity allowances as a right when they actually sell the extra they do not use to individuals.If you stop this your company losses would be reduced.
I am surprised that you allow losses which are above 5-10%,maybe to allow for more corruption within Zesa staff.The by-passing of meters should be dealt with logically because its foundation comes from those who were hired to install the meters in collaboration with some corrupt Zesa staff.Zesa is allowed by law to disconnect power to any customer who tampers with its equipment pending court case if necessary,therefore Zesa has itself to blame for high losses.
It is also funny that after more than 3 years of the introduction of these prepaid meters you now find it important to attach your technical staff to Eskom.It looks like you had put the cart in front of the horse-no wonder why you have high losses due to meter tampering and incompetence.I am not sure what this manager means by wrong equipment causing losses,when this so-called wrong equipment is supposed to consume electricity instead of generating it.Is this manager trying to tell us not to power any high wattage equipment?