To curb power theft and address billing issues, Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO), in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), has decided to install 1.7 million modern meters based on advanced metering infrastructure (AMI).
The total cost of the initiative will be around $300 million. Not only will the move help in saving traditional meter reading expenses, but it will also eliminate line losses.
Since, AMI based meters continuously transmit information to a central control room, incidents of transformers and meters catching fire will also decline significantly across the provincial capital.
Moreover, LESCO consumers will be able to check their electric load, voltage, and bill at any time.
Project Details
Of the total project cost, ADB will pay almost 78.5% while LESCO will fund the remaining expenses.
Under the project, 1,474,532 single-phase and 213,120 three-phase AMI based meters will be installed in LESCO’s south and central circles.
28,753 old industrial and commercial meters will be replaced with the modern meters as well.
Once AMI meters are installed in the south and central circles, the scope of the project will be expanded to all remaining circles of LESCO.
LESCO has granted the contract to conduct the technical evaluation of the project to a foreign consultancy firm.
The evaluation will take around 3 months to complete. The work on the project will begin once the evaluation concludes. The project is expected to take 4 years to complete.
LESCO’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mujahid Pervaiz Chattha, said that facilitating the consumers is the primary aim of LESCO.
We continue to plan according to future needs while dealing in a timely manner with customer complaints. This is the first step towards providing better services to consumers through the use of advanced technology.
acha h. consumer aur staff easy ho gye
I think even a child in Pakistan knows that major problems are :
1. bringing cost of electricity down
2. Better governance.. (which is more of a general issue)
long before introducing automation in billing.
Not sure how we set our priorities.
One thing this smart metering will surely provide is more power to the company and less power to consumer :)
I am not against technology instead quiet the opposite, but i am afraid given history of corruption, this technology’s potential of abuse. While we could not effectively manage abuse in older yet simpler tech, do we even have apparatus to effectively govern hi tech?
I think they need to Install METERS first, let alone SMART METERS , That too the way they should be installed, lot of time it looks like meter grown on the poles and not installed
instead of investing on smart meter which is not as useful technology as it seems but more opportunities for coorpution i think instead of smart meter installation pakistan should install and move all power line under ground and also need to increase the capacity of the power generation and not reduce but complete finish power outrage problem country wide
Its too old news, provide us the latest information for the said project.
In this way LESCO will get most out of it as our electricity meter is almost one and half hours advanced from the actual time i.e. Pakistan Standard time. I have myself checked the time and the meter, where It showed 18:57 i.e. 6:57 pm whereas the actual time was 5:26 pm. . Thus the extra Peak rates are being charged earlier to us based on the advance time of our meter clock. This how the Lesco will mint money through these digital meters
Now you can also know and pay online LESCO bills by visiting lescobillonline.com Generate duplicate bills, know the tariff and make complaints about LESCO, etc. Payment can be made at JAZZ cash, easy paisa, post office, commercial banks, etc.