Headlines

NEMSA Allays Fears Over Prepaid Meters Upgrade Process.

Published

8 months ago

September 4, 2023

Stella Charles Akupue

NEMSA Allays Fears Over Prepaid Meters Upgrade Process.

The Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) has assured the public of NEMSA’s readiness to ensure that all electricity meters and instruments deployed in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) are of the correct standard, specification, safety and quality to accurately measure and record electrical energy consumed and guarantee the security of lives and property. Also Read: https://legalattorneyblog.com/2023/08/04/update-your-meters-now-before-november-24-nerc/

NEMSA managing director/CEO & chief Electrical Inspector of the Federation, Engr. Aliyu Tukur Tahir gave the assurance at the weekend while reacting to public enquiries, especially from electricity consumers, over the ongoing discussion on the issue of Standard Transfer Specification (STS) prepaid meters upgrading using Token Identifier (TID) rollover set to commence soon by the Distribution Companies in Nigeria.

Why the Prepaid Meters Upgrade is Necessary

While noting their concerns, the NEMSA chief executive advised electricity consumers not to fear, stressing that the Token Identifier is a 24-bit field contained in STS-compliant tokens that identifies the date and time of the token generation, which he said is used to determine if a ticket has already been used in a prepaid meter.

“The TID represents the number of minutes elapsed since the base date of 1st January 1993. The incrementing of the 24-bit field means that at some point, the TID value will roll over to a zero value”, he said in a statement yesterday. Also Read: https://legalattorneyblog.com/2023/08/05/dont-pay-for-meter-upgrade-enugu-disco-tells-customers/

According to him, to overcome the TID rollover occurrence, all meters will require key change tokens with the rollover bit set, which will be provided by the Utility Companies when the critical change tokens are imputed; that process will force the meters to reset the TID stack memory to 0 and change the meter key at the same time.

Steps in the Prepaid Meters Upgrade Process

“ This process will not make energy meters faster or slower. Hence, there is no need for panic, and the TID rollover will NOT alter or change the metrological properties of electricity meters certified by NEMSA to accurately measure and record electrical energy consumed.