30 November 2016, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Eko Electricity Distribution Company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with Chinese technology company, Huawei, to expedite installation of prepaid meters within its network.
Details of the agreement revealed that, starting with 100,000 meters installation, customers within Eko Disco network would be fully metered before the end of the deal with Huawei.
Chairman of West Power Gas, owners of Eko Disco, Mr. Charles Momoh, who spoke before the signing of the agreement at West Africa Power Industry Convention, WAPIC 2016, in Lagos, said the deal would speed up the company’s meter installation programme before the deadline of the Bureau of Public Enterprise, BPE’s, five years metering scheme for power distribution companies.
Managing Director of Eko Disco, Engr. Oladele Amoda, who spoke after the signing ceremony, said besides the Huawei deal, the company also has an agreement with Nigeria’s meter manufacturer, MOJEC and MOMANS, to meter their customers.
“We have another agreement with MOJEC and MOMANS. So we want to accelerate our metering process to ensure that we meet our five year agreement with BPE to meter our customers within the period. We signed a five years meeting programme with BPE so we are accelerating our activities in order to meet the deadline,” he said.
Under BPE’s five years agreement, Eko Disco is expected to deploy 600,000 meters to its customers but currently has only done 60 percent of the figure.
Commenting on the duration of the metering installation programme, Engr, Amoda said: “All things being equal, we hope to complete the installation of prepaid meters to all our customers in the next two years and meet BPE deadline. Although there are lots of factors affecting us, such as the naira exchange rate, inflation etc. but from the way we have planned it, if everything goes well we are looking between two to three years, at least within BPE performance agreement period.”