Customers of the Zimbabwe power Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) have been informed that if they do not promptly upgrade their prepaid power metres, the devices would not work later this year.
Prepaid metres from the current generation are equipped with software that has a date restriction of November 24, 2024, built in.
The metres are mounted on houses and businesses, and after that date, they will stop accepting new tokens, so turning off the energy to such properties.
Alaina Suliwa, the acting public relations officer at ZETDC, stated the following to The Sunday Mail:
On November 17, 2023, ZETDC began the prepaid metre update project. The project began with a test programme in a few chosen locations throughout all regions.
The pilot project covered areas under the North district (Harare Region); Mutare district (Eastern Region); Bulawayo East district (Western Region); Gweru district (Southern Region); and Kadoma and Chinhoyi districts (Northern Region).
In total, 85 per cent of the installed meters in these areas were successfully upgraded.
The remaining 15 per cent are non-TID (token identifier)-compliant meters that the utility will change at no cost to the client.
TID is the system used by prepaid meters to determine the authenticity of a recharge token.
The exercise, Suliwa said, was then rolled out to the rest of the country on 18 December. She said:
The upgrade is done as part of compliance with the requirements by the STS (Standard Transfer Specification) system for prepaid meters, which states that all power utilities using this system the world over have to do the upgrades by November 24, 2024, to enable their meters to continue accepting tokens.
Any prepaid meter that is not upgraded by this date will not accept tokens. Hence, upgrading ensures uninterrupted recharging service to our valued customers and also comes with enhanced security features for the meter.
Meanwhile, on Friday, ZETDC’s prepaid electricity vending purchase system was temporarily unavailable from all third-party platforms due to a technical fault.
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