Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) says its clients should upgrade the pre-paid metres by 24 November 2024 because the new system will not accept tokens beyond that date.
Below are the FOUR steps to follow to upgrade one’s meter, according to a notice by ZETDC:
Make sure you have topped up all tokens purchased before the upgrade. ZETDC will not be liable for old tokens that were not recharged before the upgrade.
STEP 1: Purchase electricity – You will get three sets of 20-digit tokens when you purchase electricity. The upgrade tokens are generated when you purchase electricity and are not paid for.
STEP 2: Enter the first set of 20-digit tokens – Wait until Confirmation is received before proceeding.
STEP 3: Enter the second set of 20-digit tokens – Wait until Confirmation is received before proceeding.
STEP 4: Enter the third set of 20-digit tokens – Once complete your recharge token (the 3rd token) will be loaded successfully.
Speaking to The Herald in October 2023, ZETDC acting managing director Abel Gurupira said the upgrade will improve efficiency and the use of electricity. He said:
It is ideally a situation where I would say the smart meters that we have involve a system that is within the institution and there is a meter which is at the client’s premises.
The system is responsible for generating tokens when one makes a purchase or buys power they are given a token which they then key into the meter and that meter should be able to identify and decrypt that unique token.
This system was developed in 1993 and South Africa was involved. Many other utilities came on board so 1993 is the base year where the generation of these tokens began.
We are coming to a time when the 30 years that were incorporated in this system is expiring and we are saying once we get to the 30 years, the meters will then not be able to identify the token that has been generated by our system and therefore will reject it.
We are coming to a time where we have to reset giving the meter a new lease of life where the algorithms that are within the organisation’s system and those that are within the meter should be able to speak to each other.
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