55,000 small and medium enterprise customers across the country will benefit from the new smart metering project that KPLC has introduced. The project was funded by the World Bank who gave KSh 1.25 billions which is a part of the Kenya Electricity Modernization project and which aims to be done by 30th June year. The project was approved by the World Bank in 2015 as a way of implementing the government’s last mile goal of scaling up electricity services across the country. Additionally the World Bank said they would contribute $457.5 million to the project plus a credit of $350 million from the International Development Association, an IDA guarantee of $200 million and a grant of $7.5 million from the Strategic Climate Fund Scaling up Renewable Energy Program. During the launch Kenya Power’s Managing Director Bernard Ngugi said: “These combined benefits of error-free data, prompt network problem identification, and audit of energy consumption will go a long way in enhancing service delivery to our customers in the SME sector” He added: “We believe that the advanced metering technology will further enhance customer satisfaction based on the visibility and prompt detection of power usage and also reduce technical losses which are key to ensuring reliable and quality supply of power” What makes the smart meter special? According to Kenya Power this new meter will be a part of an “Advanced Metering infrastructure that facilitates two way communication between the company and customer.” Basically when you experience an outage the system will be able to communicate directly to the company and thereafter they will be able to fix the problem. Would this mean that we won’t have to keep tweeting KPLC when there’s a power outage? We hope that the number of outages would reduce especially during the rainy season. When the Kenya Power team will be alerted when there’s a problem, it means they will be able to also send out a notification to the custimer via SMS.
