About a year back [ 19 May 2017 ] , I sent my following suggestion for
introduction of a Smart Electricity Meter to the Cabinet Ministers :
But , how about a PREPAID ELECTRICITY METER , with
following features / functionality ?
· It
will be a Tablet look-alike device
·
· It
will show daily – weekly – monthly , power consumption of the premises
·
· It
will show the “ average / highest / lowest “ monthly consumption
·
· It
will also show how many UNITS remain to his BALANCE , at any given time
·
· It
will show a GRAPH comparing consumptions during any two “ periods “
·
· It
will have facility to enter ( type in ) , customer’s Aadhar Number ( of course,
linked
to his Bank Account Number )
·
· After
login ( using biometric identification of Finger + Iris + Voice ) , customer
can “
Re-charge “ his “ Account “ with ( say ) , Rs
1,000 / - at the beginning, using the
built-in Virtual Keyboard ( Device will have
built-in camera )
·
· When
the “ balance “ to his credit falls to ( say ) Rs 100 / - , an alarm will ring
and
he will also get Email / SMS / WhatsApp
reminder
·
· If
he fails to “ Re-Charge “ his account , power will get disconnected upon the
balance falling to Rs 10/- !
·
· Power
will start flowing again as soon as consumer “ re-charges “ through device
None of this ( hardware + software +
wireless telecom ) , is a Rocket Science !
Any Start Up can come up with such a
total, end-to-end, solution within 6 months !
Only thing , this device cannot stop
is UN-METERED THEFT of power ,
where wires get pulled from a power-line , bypassing the meter !
Other than this one limitation , this
suggestion has the potential to dramatically improve the Financial Positions of the
State DISCOMS !
Dear Shri Goyalji ,
Would you like to pose this challenge
to our Start Ups ?
[ Read :
Today’s Business
Standard carries following headline :
Dear Shri R K Singhji :
Many thanks for accepting my suggestion . I urge
you to consider the specifications of such a Smart Electric Meter , as
described in my above mentioned email
Extract from today’s Business Standard news item :
"In the next 3 years, metering will go smart and gone
will be the days of bills reaching your house. So, need of the hour is to scale
up manufacturing of smart prepaid meters and to bring down their prices,"
the statement cited Singh as saying.
"This will revolutionise the power sector by way of
reduced AT&C ( aggregate technical and commercial ) losses, better health
of discoms, incentivisation of energy conservation and ease of bill payments, etcetera," he
said.
Dear Shri Singhji :
And now that there is so much talk of using Artificial Intelligence and Block-Chain technologies for improving
productivity of all “ Retailing
Processes “ ( - distributing
electric power to millions of homes , is the biggest “ retailing / home
delivery “ process ), I urge you to ask our scientists / engineers to consider
the following research :
Scientists have developed a new
artificial intelligence ( AI ) system that can detect ELECTRICITY THEFT and meter mis-readings – a common
problem in developing countries
A team from the University of
Luxembourg looked at the energy use of 3.6
million Brazilian households over FIVE YEARS
The researchers specifically focussed
on nearly 200 Million monthly readings made
by professional meter readers
They then developed an algorithm that
, after sifting through the readings, could
recognize when energy use at a property was suspiciously low
Researchers verified their results
with data on past inspections , checking if their tool was correctly highlighting
potential cases of fraud or faulty metering
The most accurate versions of the
system were able to identify problem cases just over 65 % of the time , News
Scientist reported
[ Source : Economic Times / 26 Sept 2017 ]
08 June 2018
