The Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy called for assistance from a subsidiary of the Armed Forces’ National Service Products Organisation (NSPO), instead of consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, to carry out consultancy work on a project that will supply 250,000 smart electricity meters.
The NSPO subsidiary officials held a meeting on 7 June with the first eight companies that were qualified for the tender of supplying 3m smart electricity meters.
Officials revised the alliances’ documents and checked all the details to identify the parties participating in the alliance before presenting all the offers.
An official from one of the participating alliances told Daily News Egypt that all companies will submit their offers on 12 July, after the revision of all companies’ documents by the consulting office. The documents are expected to be completely checked by the end of June.
The eight companies were chosen based on their expertise in supplying smart electricity meters; among them are Huawei, Dong Fang, China Machinery, ZTE, Ericsson, and Optics Factory.
The project includes supplying and installing 250,000 smart meters as a first stage of the ministry’s plan, which targets installing 10m meters over 10 years, explained the official.
The smart electricity meter project helps the consumers manage their usage, which will reduce the cost of their bills and will help the consumer make payments in advance. The project will make the meter’s reading more accurate and reduce the time period between the meter’s reading and billing.
The smart electricity meter allows the consumer to monitor and rationalise the consumption, where the display gives the consumer real-time usage info, including kWh use and cost. The meter shows the segment of the electricity consumption, and there is a button on the screen that displays the contractual capacity.
When the consumer uses 25% of the balance, the meter’s lamp turns on. When the balance reaches 10% of the value, the lamp will intermittently light. The customer will then be able to recharge the balance.
The subscriber can recharge the card in one of the company’s centres at any time and by any amount of energy. The customer can add new balance to the remaining one, noted the official.
He also mentioned that customers will buy smart meter card at a price of EGP 18.5. The card can hold values from EGP 10 to EGP 10,000. If a customer loses their cards, he or she can receive a replacement card from the company that contain their meter’s data, and the customers will bear the cost.
