All You Need to Know About Prepayment [Prepaid] Meters in Nigeria
This post encompasses all you, a customer, needs to know about prepaid meters in Nigeria. It covers what exactly they are, how to acquire them, their advantages [over conventional meters] and how to recharge them.
What are prepaid meters?
Prepaid meters are a special kind of [smart] meters which, as the name implies, allows you to pay for the electricity you consume beforehand. This is usually carried out with the use of a token or a key card. The tokenized smart meters are recharged by inputting a generated 20-digit token number into it and it provides the value of electricity paid for.
These kinds of meters are currently being adopted throughout the country and have proven to be much more better than the previous, ordinary meters. The conventional meters adopt a shared payment model which does not put in consideration, individual use. To be put clearly, the prepaid meters allows you to operate a ‘pay as you use’ model.
How to get prepaid meters
Since most regions are served by a particular power company, the acquisition of prepaid meters for use can be from respective power companies. For example,
Residents of Abuja, Kogi, Jos and Niger can acquire their prepaid meters from Abuja Electricity Distribution Company [AEDC]. Residents of Lagos state can either approach the Ikeja Electricity company or the Eko electricity company.
And sometimes, the companies on their own accord, sometimes do a mass metering. And share prepaid meters to residents. To request for a prepaid meter check our post on how to easily contact your distribution company.
Advantages of prepaid meters
Your budget
Unlike other modes of metering where you pay high amounts as electricity charge regardless of the value of electricity consumed, the acquisition of a prepayment meter helps you be in total control of how much you want to spend on electricity at any given time, or within a given timeframe. Hence, you can confidently create a budget for electricity and streamline your usage to fit it.
Electricity consumption
Once you are in control of your budget, it tells on your consumption of electricity. You tend to consume more in a big house with heavy electrical appliances and electronics. Hence, you are at liberty to know when to tone down your consumption and what not. Plus you can also keep track of your electricity consumption.
You’re paying for the exact value
Who doesn’t want a situation where they will be paying for the exact value they receive? Well, we do. The prepayment meter makes this possible. Your payment of, say, N10,000 serves you the exact value. Traditional metering systems doesn’t consider the value of power each house receives.
Ease of recharge
Another excitement about using prepaid meters is the ease of recharge. Buying or recharging electricity in this case can be done over the internet, or even with the use of feature phones. Buypower is a great platform to purchase electricity online, via the use of a mobile app or website or a short code.
Other advantages:
- It allows for automatic outage detection which enables proactive dispatch of crews.
- It reduces the need for the power company to access properties.
Prepayment meters obviously seems a better alternative to the conventional types of meters. Depending on the preferences of the consumer.
Let us know, are you getting a prepaid meter soon? Or if you have one already, what’s your experience like?
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