Benefits of A Prepayment System

• Elimination of connection and disconnection costs• Improved cash flow – Electricity paid for before use.• Consumer can budget and manage his electricity more effectively.• No re-connection fees• No deposit required• No meter reading necessary• Reduced billing cost (Printing & mailing)• Convenience of electricity purchases• No more billing estimates• Will pay for used power only• Improved security of buildings

Problems Associated with Conventional Prepayment Meters• Single-Purpose-Built Prepayment Meters regularly

develop faults when compared to conventional smart meters– Must be sent back to manufacturer for repairs or scrapped,

generating additional costs or new equipment purchases

• Power theft becomes paramount – People find ways to beat system

• Small constant purchases

• Bridging of meters

Problems Associatedwith Prepaid Meters

• Power theft increases losses which force increases of tariffs to compensate --

– All rate-payers lose– More customer revolt

• Prepaid meters are stolen or deliberately destroyed in some areas

• Lack of trained staff has cost some Municipalities dearly– In some instances staff is trained but not managed properly, so system

does not get managed properly, causing damage and service disruptions

• Maintenance in prepaid meter deployed areas is much higher

• Prepaid meters require more maintenance

Problems Associated withPrepaid Meters

• Regular inspections have to be carried out on metering installations– Auditing prepayment systems downloads– Checking for bridged-out meters– Not temper proof and cannot be monitored easily

• Return on investment for prepaid meters is non-existent in some areas– When units of 80kWh are used, income and profit are so small it cannot

even pay off the prepaid equipment loan• Changing technology makes prepaid meters out of date too soon and in

many cases prepaid systems have been changed due to new requirements by the consumer and government -- such as free basic electricity

• Rate-payers expect more tariff flexibility with prepaid meters – more trained customer service staff are required to cope with these new

requests

Problems AssociatedWith Prepaid Meters

• Paying power vendors - costs the municipality did not have before -- vary between 3% and 6%

• Prepayment system must be administered on a daily basis

• Customer tariffs have to cover up to three times more in capital outlay for a prepayment system than on a conventional system

TWU’s Approach ToPrepayment Plan Customers

• The short-sighted deployment of prepaid meters will simply create additional CapEx losses as they are targeted by increasingly irate consumers.

• There can be no distinction between any smart meter deployed, regardless of its consumer account configuration (a matter to be left to software programming in the central energy management system). – If a power theft is detected then all adjoining

(subordinate and supercedent) user connections can be suspended until the thief is identified and the theft rectified.

TWU’s Approach To Prepayment Plan Customers

• Smart grid applications are needed to make the local power distribution grid self-aware

– Capable of detecting and shutting down illegal connections without the physical intervention of outside plant personnel.

– Remote monitoring,

– Distribution automation sensors, and

– Smart meters

– Fully integrated over a broadband network by a dedicated local energy distribution management system

• Precluding implication of outside plant personnel in power theft.

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Who Is TWU?• South African BEE Company• National ECNS & ECS Licences in SA

– Will Acquire Similar Licences in Zimbabwe

• Experienced Management Team– World-class Telecom / AMI partners

• World-class Technology Solutions• Committed to Customer Satisfaction

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TWU’s ROLE• Provide Internet access services, along with pay-

as-you-go business-to-business services• Procure, implement, and operate a wholesale

local fulfillment service for all cellular network carriers offering mobile calls in ZESA Zimbabwe metro area

• Provide no-cost metro, and low-cost national VoIP calls to all ZESA Zimbabwe metro customer sites

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BENEFITS

• TWU Responsibilities: – Technology Procurement – Implementation – Interoperable Management

• Three Separate Management Systems

• TWU Charges on a Pay-as-Used Basis for All Managed Services