Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIA Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) has launched a new smart metre system, marking a historic operational shift designed to eliminate the tedious manual entry of token codes.
The new technology allows electricity units to load automatically the moment a customer completes a purchase, removing the need to punch in the traditional 20-digit tokens.
Speaking in Dar es Salaam yesterday during the launching event, TANESCO Managing Director, Lazaro Twange said beyond convenience, the system is engineered to solve persistent frustrations, including tokens failing to load, remote metre errors and delays in account updates.
“The smart metres operate on a central digital network that facilitates twoway real-time communication between the device and TANESCO’s control centres. This connectivity is the result of the utility’s recent grid modernisation efforts, including a strategic pilot project in the Ilala Municipality aimed at digitising grid assets to improve visibility and response times,” he said.
According to industry data, TANESCO has historically faced transmission and distribution losses of approximately 14.6 per cent, a financial leak that costs the utility billions in lost revenue annually.
By eliminating commercial losses such as metre bypassing and billing errors, this new infrastructure is viewed as a critical revenue protection measure.
Mr Twange said the launch represents a major milestone for the company. “Today we have made history with the introduction of smart metres,” he said, expressing confidence that the technology will improve efficiency nationwide.
“The smart metres can store consumption records for up to 13 months, providing a black box of data for dispute resolution. If a metre becomes faulty, it will be easy to retrieve accurate information about how much electricity a customer had,” he said.
He added that complaints often arise when metres malfunction and customers insist they had remaining units. With smart metres, all data will be easily verified.
The power utility boss further said a compassionate feature of the new system is the ability to correct wrong metre number purchases. “In the past this caused losses, but with the smart metre system, units can be redirected to the intended metre without difficulty,” Mr Twange said.
Operational benefits extend to safety and maintenance. The Managing Director said TANESCO can now temporarily disconnect customers remotely in case of fire hazards.
“Instead of dispatching staff to cut power physically, we can disconnect affected areas from the system and reconnect them once the issue is resolved,” he said.
According to him, the devices will also simplify tariff configuration, a crucial capability for large consumers like the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), allowing both TANESCO and the customer to monitor precisely how much power is generated and supplied.
Officiating the launch, Energy Minister Deogratius Ndejembi directed TANESCO to introduce a robust mobile application to facilitate customer interaction.
This directive points toward a significant upgrade of the utility’s existing NiKonekt platform, which currently handles service applications but lacks the realtime consumption monitoring the Minister envisions.
The minister also instructed the company to ensure that smart metre installation follows international standards of safety and quality.
