Power theft in pre-paid metres:Hampered by the ghost vending.

Don’t you have to pay a monthly fee for a prepaid mobile phone? If fees are not paid, the service provider will abruptly disconnect the mobile connection. The majority of individuals are aware of this inconvenience and pay their phone bills in advance. A prepaid connection is a solution for this. The prepaid electricity meter is introduced by many electricity companies as new technology and innovative technology. That is false. This technique was already widely used by distribution utilities in India a decade and a half ago. Can prepaid energy meters stop electricity theft? Never. If current charge collection is a problem, this is a better mechanism that can be applied to increase collection efficiency exclusively.

Whatever manipulation can be done on an electronic meter, can be done on a smart meter and on the prepaid system also, of course, in a way more vulnerable too. So the prepaid system is not a panacea for power theft and cannot applied  to certain pockets or classes of consumers from whom the collection of electricity is an issue for DISCOMs

Electricity is distributed in advance all throughout the world, and the charge is collected subsequently. A user can use energy for one or two months without paying anything, depending on their usage category, before the grace period begins. This may vary depending on the power company. After that only, the consumer is responsible for paying electricity bills. The electricity used by this consumer may have been purchased on a short, medium, or long-term basis, and the distribution companies requisite to pay bills with the generator companies, regardless of whether the charges are recovered from the user or not. This has put the electricity utilities like KSEB, Andhra Pradesh DISCOMS, BESCOMs etc. in a predicament and dented the cash flow of  DISCOMs. Prepaid metering system addresses this issue to a great extent.

Customers who adhere to the law and pay their bills on time are regarded as law-abiding citizens, and the efforts of power companies in collecting charges will be reduced. In all other cases, power utilities are at the consumer’s choice; they may or may not be obligated to pay electricity charges, and the sole option is to turn the power off. Politically divisive areas will make it impossible to carry out this activity, and it will also give rise to legal action.

The utility is unable to schedule any work based on anticipated revenue from a client, which is a drawback. This is also closely related to the nation’s political structure. Some South Asian nations are infamous for having poor administration or none at all, and the financial health of their energy utilities is terrible.

The unauthorised sale of pre-paid electricity vouchers is known as ghost vending. The electronic meters have a special operating system that uses tokens obtained from the retail establishment. These vouchers are frequently tampered with by offenders, who then create copies of them, fooling the energy meter. South Africa is where this is most prevalent. Which century are the power utilities operating in, if they believe the introduction of prepayment meters will solve all of their problems? They are not suitable for the 21st century in any scenario.(tamperfinder)

#ghostvending  #powertheft #southasia  #southafrica  #prepaidmeters

#smartmeters #KSEB  #BESCOM #APCDCL #electricitytheft