Electricity Meters Upgrade Won’t Affect Credit Balance — Nigerian Government

The Federal Government, on Sunday, said the electricity meter upgrade process to be implemented by power distribution companies would not affect the credit units balance in the meters.

It disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja by the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency, stressing that NEMSA would ensure that all electricity meters and instruments deployed in the sector were of the right standard.

“Let me assure all electricity customers that they have nothing to fear as the meter upgrade process will not affect the credit unit balance on their meters. The credit balance will remain intact after the upgrade.

“They are also to note that meter upgrade is a one-time process. Subsequent energy token purchases will continue as usual after the upgrade has been completed,” the Managing Director, NEMSA, Aliyu Tahir, stated in the statement.

Tahir disclosed this while reacting to the issue of Standard Transfer Specification for the upgrade of prepaid meters by means of Token Identifier rollover, which is set for commencement by the power distributors in Nigeria.

Last week, Punch reported that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission advised prepaid meter users to upgrade their meters before November next year to avoid losing the meters.

Tahir explained that in order to overcome the TID rollover occurrence, all meters would require key change tokens with the rollover bit set, which would be provided by the Discos.

He said when the key change tokens are imputed, the process would force the meters to reset the TID stack memory to zero and change the meter key at the same time.