Govt to Install AMI Meters by Mid-2023 to Reduce Electricity Losses

In order to curb the losses incurred by the ex-WAPDA distribution companies (DISCOs), the federal government has decided to install AMI (Advanced Metering of Infrastructure) meters on all the feeders suffering high losses by June 2023. A daily national, while quoting a senior official of the Energy Ministry, said that besides feeders, the AMI system will also be installed on all commercial and industrial connections, bulk consumers, and one-point supply in decreasing order of load. Installation of AMI meters would start from feeders having the highest percentage of losses. The official stated that an independent autonomous directorate would be established in this regard. Each DISCO would share the timeline of the completion of said projects with a project director, other teams and the Power Division. The official hoped that the installation of the high-tech system will help eradicate electricity theft and technical losses as the conventional energy auditing system is unable to figure out the areas of high energy losses. The report stated that DISCOs would have no problem in outsourcing feeders and transformers once this system gets installed as this would aid in correcting feeder coding and indexing consumers’ reference numbers with the right transformer. This in turn would enable DISCOs to take a meter reading through a real-time GMS technology as well as remotely disconnect the meter. The report also mentioned that the DISCOs would coordinate with meter manufacturers and contractors for adding specific features to the meters besides implementing AMI.