PANAJI
Ahead of rolling out Smart Meters, the State Electricity Department has commenced consumer indexing and site survey as a preparatory step for the large-scale installation of new meters under the central government’s Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS).
Starting from November, the installation of smart meters will commence across all the government offices as well as power substations and transformers, as part of the first phase.
The government has appointed Digismart Networks Pvt Ltd (lead consortium member) and CWD Ltd (consortium member) for the implementation of the project, which is estimated at Rs 890 crore. Smart metering project implementation is based on the Design-Build-Finance-Own-Operate-Transfer (DBFOOT) model. CWD will provide the wireless IoT modules while Digismart will handle ground-level deployment. The project, covering nearly 8 lakh consumers, will be executed within a period of 27 months.
Speaking to The Goan, Superintending Engineer Mayur Hede said as part of preparatory stage we have commenced consumer indexing and site survey process, only after which the actual meter installation will start.
“Consumer indexing is basically an exercise to cross verify consumer profiling that includes government, industries, commercial and domestic. We already have the data but we are verifying it through ground survey,” he explained adding, the site survey is to assess the infrastructure, connectivity, GPS tagging, etc.
As part of site survey, the department is evaluating the condition of existing metering infrastructure at consumer premises, feeders, distribution transformers, determining data transmission, network availability and signal strength at each consumer location, etc.
Hede said that once the exercise is complete, the first phase of installation, covering the government offices, our transformers, sub stations, will commence from November. “The first lot of smart meters will be arriving this month,” he said.
The department will take up industrial and commercial consumers for replacing their old power meters as part of second phase, which is expected in December, followed by domestic consumers.
As reported earlier, the cost of the meters would be recovered from the consumers through power tariffs. The Advanced Metering Infrastructure Service provider will be paid on a per meter per month basis and the same will be recovered from the consumers through tariffs.
The company is responsible for the supply, installation, testing, and commissioning of the smart metering infrastructure along with operation and maintenance for this duration.
According to the department, the smart meters function on a real-time basis and record and store all electrical parameters such as consumption of energy, voltage and current levels, etc. The data will be used by the department for billing, to monitor power quality, load scheduling, demand management and fault analysis.
Under RDSS, Goa’s initial target date for implementation of smart electricity meters was March 2023, which was later extended to March 2024 and thereafter to December 2025.
The Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) has sought a report from the department on the progress of smart meters within two months. Before that, the Union Ministry for Power had pulled up State over delay in implementing the project, which was sanctioned way back in 2021.
