Now it's Prepaid Electricity for the consumers

First came the use of prepaid mobile phone lines. Then came landline phones using prepaid technology. Lately, a petroleum company has also been retailing products to customer who have prepaid cards.
Amid the economic crunch and the tough times being experienced by consumers due to high prices of petroleum, food and electricity, power retailer Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has come up with a scheme for consumers to use prepaid electricity meters.
Meralco said that starting August, it will begin the pilot testing of the prepaid meters.
Meralco first vice- president and customer retail services head Roberto Almazora said the preliminary test period for the prepaid meter system will involve 100 households in a village within Metro Manila.
"We are exploring the use of several technologies. We want to know if it will really work," he said.
Almazora said declining to mention the technology they will use, said they will install a meter worth P8 ,000 and P10 ,000.
A similar prepaid metering technology is being tested by an electric cooperative in Leyte.
"We are trying to determine the appropriate technology that we can use that will be the best for our customers," the Meralco official said.
He said they are even looking at the similar scheme being used in cellphone load where one customer can pass load to one another.
Meralco believed that the use of a system of pre-paid electricity would help address the problems of pilferage, which adds to the systems charge in consumers' monthly electricity bills.
Aside from South Africa, the prepaid meter system has been successfully implemented in China and the United States.
Draft rules released
The project came after the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) released last month the draft rules for the availment of prepaid electricity.
Under the proposed rules, prepaid meters to be offered to the public should be able to store at least two months' worth of electricity consumption.
The rates to be applied in any prepaid transaction "should be based on the previous month's postpaid rate".
The scheme will also not affect subsidized rates for households consuming less than 100 kilowatts of electricity per month.
To protect the consumers, ERC said distribution utilities will shoulder the cost of prepaid meters and no deposits will be collected for this.
The public consultations started last August 26 in Cebu. Another hearing will be conducted on this matter on September 2 for electric utilities based in Mindanao and Visayas in the National Transmission Corp. Banilad substation in Cebu City and those in Luzon in the regulator's main office in Pasig City, respectively.
ERC believes that the adoption of the prepaid electricity scheme would help cut down system loss and eventually redound to lowering of power rates.
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