Desco to Provide Smart Prepaid Meters to All by 2023

The Dhaka Electric Supply Company Ltd (Desco) will provide smart pre-payment meters to all its customers by 2023

Kausar Ameer Ali, managing director of Desco, said this while speaking at a webinar on ''Challenges After Achieving 100% Electricity Coverage'' on Sunday evening. 

The virtual seminar was also addressed by Bikash Dewan, managing director of Dhaka Power Distribution Company Ltd, (DPDC), Helal Uddin, Vice President of Bangladesh Shop Owners Association, Shahedul Islam Helal, former president of Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI) and Ariful Haque Suhan, vice chairman of Reverie Power & Automation Engineering.

Energy & Power editor Mollah Amzad Hossain Conducted the seminar. 

Desco is responsible for electricity distribution in the city's west and north-eastern areas of 225 sq km including Mirpur, Pallabi, Kafrul, Kalyanpur, Cantonment, Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara, Mohakhali, Uttara, Uttarkhan, Dakkhinkhan, Badda and Purbachal.

It has about 1 million consumers some of which were provided pre-payment meters for billing purposes are living mainly in Mirpur and Uttara.

To get the electricity supply continued, the consumers of these areas have to re-charge their pre-payment card cards from the vending stations. 

“But once the smart pre-payment meters will be installed, the consumers would not need to go to vending stations. Rather, they could recharge their cards using their own gadgets from home or abroad to continue to get electricity service," Kausar Ameer Ali told the webinar. 

He also informed that the company has taken a move to take its 133 kV overhead electricity lines underground by 2023. 

Initially, installation work of such underground cable will start in the Gulshan area under a pilot project and then gradually such a project will be implemented in other areas. 

In this regard, the Mohakhali to Airport road will get priority, he added. 

Bikash Dewan said DPDC has also taken up projects to take its overhead electricity lines underground and the first project will be implemented in the Dhanmondi area. 

''But this job has been a great challenge for DPDC as a big area its power distribution is the old part of the city which power networks go through very narrow areas," he said adding that the distribution company has to think about alternative arrangements and technologies considering the characteristics of those areas.

Shahedul Islam said although power supply improved with the increased generation, uninterrupted and quality power supply has not been ensured. “As industry operators, we have to bear a huge cost for the interruption in electricity supply as it creates problems in production," he said.

Helal Uddin said both the distribution companies are providing a single meter for each customer in big shopping malls. As a result, shop owners have to pay a higher rate of electricity. 

''Once an individual meter is installed, it'll reduce the electricity cost," he said.