Many of the difficulties ordinary South Africans experience with utility services stem from ineffective management of many of the country’s 262 municipalities.
Enermatics, an established provider of smart metering technology and reseller of power to end users, has rolled out a comprehensive solution to demand site management which covers all levels of the distribution network.
Low revenue collection and challenges with physical meter readings exacerbate the overall difficulty municipalities experience in streamlining management.
“Most of these municipalities do not have access to technology which enables improved revenue collections and protection, remote load control and rationing, as well as the value of access to either prepaid or conventional meters,” says Raj Naidoo, director of Enermatics.
But they will now, he adds, as a result of Enermatics smart metering capability. This technology empowers municipalities with the ability to access accurate, realtime billing information, and online billing will ensure all meter readings are achieved, irrespective of where they are situated.
‘We also assist municipalities to better manage free basic electricity supply to disadvantaged communities. Enermatics stores all data received and provides the municipality with the capacity to view historical electricity usage of individual meters and groups of meters,” says Naidoo.
“Our solution offers revenue protection through alerting you to tampering and illegal electricity connections. We offer an improved solution to the challenge of revenue collection through both our conventional and prepaid metering solutions,” he adds.
Municipalities can also take advantage of realtime data on an individual user basis – and this will help with future SmartGrid management and provide insight/ clarity when it comes to electricity usage.
“As we are all well aware South Africa, like many parts of Africa, is impacted significantly by power outages and load shedding. Using Enermatics technology and its expertise and experience, municipalities are able to better manage load control on the grid by scheduling electricity usage according to priorities,” Naidoo explains.