The Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) has successfully deployed over 14,000 cutting-edge Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) meters of all tariffs so far in Rawalpindi, marking a significant progress in its ambitious up-gradation and digitization plan that would be completed by June 2026.
The company, under the plan, would install over 900,000 AMI meters, initially in Rawalpindi City Circle, Rawalpindi Cantonment Circle and Taxila (Division), Chief Engineer Operation IESCO Muhammad Aslam Khan told APP here Sunday while sharing latest data available upto April 14.
He said that the three-year duration project would be completed in June 2026, adding a contractor has already been hired and around 700-750 AMI meters were being installed on daily basis.
However, he said that after hiring of second contractor, around 2,000 AMI meters would be installed daily to carry forward the project on fast-track basis.
The project was being executing with the financial assistant of Asian Development Bank (ADB), costing $ 89 million, he said adding it was part of the second power distribution enhancement investment programme under bank’s financing.
The contract for the project was signed on September, 3, 2022 while contract effectiveness date was January 2023, he added.
Khan said that main data centre and back data centre have already been set up at the IESCO’s head office and Gujjar Khan respectively.
He went on to say that switching over to the AMI system would bring about a permanent elimination of power pilferage with systematic control of transmission through round-the-clock monitoring of the electricity meters.
This technology would help reduce power sector losses, enhance the quality of billing and recoveries, control power load-shedding and also address the consumers’ complaints of wrong or over-billing, the Chief Engineer told this agency.
Shedding light on significance of the project, Aslam Khan said the AMI system would end human interventions in meter reading, enhance customer support, better measurements, more accurate billing, a degree of control of consumption and help improve IESCO’s ability to reduce non-technical losses.
He said automated 100 per cent accurate and timely meter readings would reduce costs incurred on meter readings significantly.
