AEDC commissions €2m automated equipment to improve customer service,  cut losses

Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has commissioned a €2.4 million (about N982m) integrated commercial management systems (InCMS)  automated platform to improve customer service experience and reduce its losses.

James Momoh, chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), who commissioned the automated system tasked the other 10 distribution companies (DisCos), to adopt such automated process.

He said: “We as regulators are happy to see that one of us is already leading the pack and I am sure that the other 10 discos will join to make sure an automated system is available.

“It will be able to provide information in terms of metering problems, excess charges and provide solutions to why there is no power so they can provide quick fixes,” Momoh noted.

The system will improve the quality of service in terms of the energy you use and reduce losses, he said, adding, “I believe it will also provide for us the opportunity of efficient energy usage.”

Commenting on the equipment, Ernest Mupwaya, managing director of AEDC, said, “The cost of this is roughly two million euros, but I think even if it sounds expensive, the value which will be derived from it is much more than that.”

He also said with the system, the company can now check power theft as various customer related activities can now be remotely monitored.

“It is an intelligent system, which you can use to do energy balance. You would have known at a transformer level how much energy came out and how much was sold to the customers and where the gap is coming from,” Mupwaya stated.

Mupwaya added that the system will ensure customers’ complaints are resolved faster.

He said: “It will provide visibility in all customer activities that we can enforce compliance in terms of meeting targets, the quality of work and that the processes are respected. For customers, it will help to ensure that their complaints are resolved in a shorter time.”

George Ngun, strategic and technical advisor to AEDC chief executive, who made a  presentation,  noted that the system was in use since December 2018 for pilot operation before it was deployed across the entire franchise area comprising Kogi, Abuja, Nasarawa and Niger state on February 6,
2019.