Electricity Prepaid meters to be available at PUC soon |17 August 2019

Mr Marguerite explaining how the prepaid meter system works

People wishing to have more control over their electricity consumption will be in a better position to do so now that the Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) have received a first batch of 2000 Prepaid Metering Systems.

The chief commercial officer at PUC, Wingate Mondon, said in a press conference yesterday morning at the Electricity House, Roche Caiman that a typical system on a premises will comprise a keypad wireless interface unit and an energy meter.

PUC is doing in-house tests and trials on the prepaid meters and after will start offering the service early next month to 200 households on Mahé, Praslin and La Digue under the social protection schemes administered by the Agency for Social Protection.

Mr Mondon said thereafter PUC will make an announcement as to when other interested households can apply for the prepaid meter and also where to purchase prepaid meter vouchers apart from PUC customer service centres on Mahé, Praslin and La Digue.

He said PUC is looking to offer a 24-hour purchase prepaid meter voucher service.

He further said that among the benefits of this system, consumers will be able to constantly gauge their consumption of electrical energy and have more control over when and how much electricity to purchase.

Mr Mondon said that the procedures to obtain a prepaid meter works in the same way as for the post-paid meter. He noted that the new Prepaid Metering System works dual ways and if a household wishes to switch back to post-paid it can do so on the same meter through terms and conditions from PUC.

Luigi Marguerite, commercial officer at PUC, explained that with the prepaid meter installed, a consumer will have to purchase the amount of electricity he or she will be using for a month. The meter will, through the keypad wireless interface unit, provide the consumer a notification as the need to recharge when credit balance runs low among other notifications.

The prepaid meter can only be recharged through a voucher purchased at the moment with PUC where the consumer will be given a 20-digit code to be registered on the keypad which will be installed in the house.

Mr Marguerite noted that even though a consumer has lost the 20-digit code no other person will be able to use the code as it will work only on the digitalised display unit (keypad) recognised through its registration number, a must to purchase the voucher code.

He noted that people will be able to buy spare vouchers in advance if they wish to do so or if they feel they will be using more than calculated.