Lie Of Life: Cost Of Fixing Prepaid Meters Is Totally Free Of Charge- PHCN Marketer

Just like every technological product, prepaid meters may develop faults. When this happens, there is the need to seek help from the right place.

Technocrats in the employment of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria insist that only officials of PHCN should address any fault relating to the PPM.

They said Nigerians must desist from asking unqualified electricity technicians to fix faults on any PHCN installation to forestall the frequency of fire outbreaks due to incorrect handling of facilities.

But how do you know that your prepaid meter might have developed a fault?

The Senior Marketing Manager, Akowonjo Business Unit, Lagos, Mr. Henry Adelakun, gave an insight to this in an interview with Power Talkback.

First, he said that when a PPM monitor indicates that a customer's credit has been exhausted, yet he still has power supply, there is a problem with the PPM unit.

Second, he said that when a customer tries to load additional unit to his PPM and it is not possible, there is a problem.

Third, he said that when a customer's meter indicates that there is power supply but his apartment has no supply, there is a problem.

Fourth, he said that when a customer's PPM monitor indicates 'Error 9', it means that there is a cable disconnection between the monitor to unit.

Fifth, he said that whenever the customer's PPM monitor shows 'Error 5', it means that it has a factory problem.

In all the cases listed above and others that may be noticed, Adelakun stressed the need to report such to the nearest PHCN office or directly to the Manager, Business Unit.

"Once the report is made, officials would be sent to the location to check the problem and rectify it."

Asked what the cost implication of such interventions would be for the customer, Adelakun said it is totally free of charge.

He said, "People should avoid asking electricians to work on PHCN property. It usually leads to greater problems because many of them are not vast in the areas they have been asked to work and they may not admit it to the PHCN customer."

Meanwhile, a Nigeria Technology Guide posted on www.naijatechguide.com, explained the basic components that make up your PPM. This could make it easier to monitor its performance and avoid losses to home appliances.

It noted that the single phase split prepaid meter, which is the most common in households, currently comes in two units.

"One of the units is called the monitor unit, which is the smaller component installed in a consumer's apartment. The monitor unit incorporates a smartcard system, which is used to load credit into the energy meter," the blog said.

It wrote that the monitor unit provides the user information to enable the consumer to interact with the meter.

"Usually, it has nine digit LCD display of information such as: available credit in kilowatt per hour, this is not the naira value of the credit.

"Through this, you can find out the total kw/h you have consumed since you installed the meter. This can help you manage your future energy spending," it added.

It hinted that other information on the monitor are – meter constant, meter version, meter number, all set by manufacturer.

"When loading credit, you would see the loading status like this (—-). This is a signal that the credit on your customer's smartcard is being transferred through monitor unit to main energy-metering unit. Once this is complete, your updated available credit level will be displayed.

"The monitor unit displays error information if any error occurs during operation. This error message comes in form of error codes," wrote NTG.

It said that the monitor unit is connected to the energy-metering unit via a communications port, which consists of four terminals.

It added, "Two of these terminals are for power supply, while the other two are for communication between energy-metering unit and monitor unit.

"The monitor unit is powered by the metering unit via this communication cable and connects the two together. The two units also interact together via their respective communications port.

"For example when you insert your smart card into the monitor unit, information downloaded at your last vend is transferred to the metering unit. This includes the energy sum bought, tariff rates, class of tariff and so on.

"The metering unit uses the communication port to regularly update the credit level records on the monitor unit's LCD display."