Power Minister Leghari seeks World Bank help for installation of smart meters

Federal Minister for Power Awais Ahmed Leghari has urged the World Bank for provision of funds and investment for installation of Smart Meters at Distribution Level Transformers in order to bring transparency and cater for unjust load-management due to losses at micro level.

He was talking to the visiting World Bank Vice President for South Asian Region, Martin Raiser who called on him here along with a delegation on Friday. Federal Minister for Petroleum Division Dr. Musaddiq Malik also participated in the meeting. Explaining the importance of Smart Meters at Distribution level Transformers, the Federal Minister said that right now smart meters are being installed at domestic and grid level and it has helped in many ways. However without installing smart meters at Transformers level the desired efficiency and just load management for a particular area cannot be ensured as right now the entire feeder has to face equal load management providing no solace to efficient consumers. He said that these smart meters can also be helpful in managing peak load demand.

Awais Leghari also invited the World Bank to invest in Public Private Partnership mode in the smart metering in LESCO and MEPCO as service provide. He informed that these Distribution Companies are next in the privatization list.

He also appraised the delegation about the recent initiatives for providing one point electricity connections with distribution and billing collection rights to industrial estates and special economic zones eliminating the monopoly and intervention of Distribution Companies’ employees at all stages. 

Martian Raiser pledged the commitment of the World Bank to continue working with Power Division and provide assistance in various sub-sector for achieving efficacy and discipline.