The Federal Government, on Sunday, said the electricity meter upgrade process to be implemented by power distribution companies would not affect the credit units balance in the meters.

It disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja by the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency, stressing that NEMSA would ensure that all electricity meters and instruments deployed in the sector were of the right standard.

“Let me assure all electricity customers that they have nothing to fear as the meter upgrade process will not affect the credit unit balance on their meters. The credit balance will remain intact after the upgrade.

“They are also to note that meter upgrade is a one-time process. Subsequent energy token purchases will continue as usual after the upgrade has been completed,” the Managing Director, NEMSA, Aliyu Tahir, stated in the statement.


Tahir disclosed this while reacting to the issue of Standard Transfer Specification for the upgrade of prepaid meters by means of Token Identifier rollover, which is set for commencement by the power distributors in Nigeria.

Last week, The PUNCH reported that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission advised prepaid meter users to upgrade their meters before November next year to avoid losing the meters.

Tahir explained that in order to overcome the TID rollover occurrence, all meters would require key change tokens with the rollover bit set, which would be provided by the Discos.

He said when the key change tokens are imputed, the process would force the meters to reset the TID stack memory to zero and change the meter key at the same time.

“This process will not make energy meters faster or slower, hence, there is no need for panic and that the TID rollover will not alter or change the metrological properties of electricity meters that have been certified by NEMSA, to accurately measure and record electrical energy consumed.

“Meter manufacturers will be required to change their production processes in order to cater for the new manufacturing hardware secure modules and key load files.

“They are also required to start manufacturing meters on the 2014 base date as will be specified by their customers when they have updated their vending systems.

“Also, the distribution companies will provide their prepaid meter customers Key Change Tokens alongside their regular energy tokens when purchasing electricity,” Tahir stated.

The NEMSA boss further stated that prepaid meter end-users would be involved in the final piece of the puzzle, which is the TID rollover key change process.

This process, he said, involves a special pair of tokens called a key change token that would be entered into the prepaid meter to finalise the update of the prepaid meter software.

Source: https://punchng.com/Electricity-meters-upgrade-wont-affect-credit-balance-FG

Nairaland need to banned all this betting people please

I consider people still using the old model lucky.
No need to upgrade to the new ones that will drain your credit units balance in the meter like the way MTN drains data

Okay

Sarahfatima7:
Bxhxh

Scamers

This government just dey whine us

First, Nigerians don't trust Govt again because of several betrayals in the past eg case of INEC & electronic transmission.

Second, the actual meter upgrade may not take more than 5mins, but NEPA will remove your meter, then put you on high estimated bill for several months before returning your meter.

Third, after the upgrade, no guarantee that meter will not start billing you higher.

Never you trust any word from this government

Do what needs to be done but k!ll that initial nonsense about physically removing the prepaid meters to upgrade them then placing the consumer on estimated billing.

That is unacceptable despite some miscreants blindly supporting such action.

If the metres must be manually upgraded, then they should be done at the residence & immediately reinstalled.

If replacement is required, bring the replacement & fix it immediately.

Never trust this apc lead government. They are all useless and bunch of liers

The FG didn't talk about important issues on this matter.

They are in for you guys

FG is agba scammer

Hmmm, charges nko

God how sure are they?

November 2024

Time still dey.

NERC should also tell us in plain English the real purpose of the upgrade. That would allay the fears of subscribers.

Lack of proper communication is the reason for all these suspicions. It's not enough to just tell us you are upgrading the meters.

For what reason?

If there is a manual on how to hack prepaid meter to stall and control unit balance. It will sell

I actually don't believe anything d federal government say ...cus all I know is dat d aim of d FG is to milk d poor masses.

Even if d Meters arw collected to get it back will be extremely hard

how we manage to elect useless and thieving minded individual to take charge of this country affairs is what surprises me.

MrAgbako:
I consider people still using the old model lucky.
No need to upgrade to the new ones that will drain your credit units balance in the meter like the way MTN drains data

You pay for what you consume.

New model of prepaid is the best.. Your credit can get exhausted at midnight and you can easily recharge with your Nokia torch phone without leaving your bedroom.

FG first thing first, give the upgrade meters first to those who do not have electricity meter and are being billed on estimated ripoff bills if you guys are sincere

The only country well blessed but its leaders keeps on planning how to milk the people dry day in day out

ecolime:
November 2024

Time still dey.

NERC should also tell us in plain English the real purpose of the upgrade. That would allay the fears of subscribers.

Lack of proper communication is the reason for all these suspicions. It's not enough to just tell us your are upgrading. For what reason?

The purpose has been made known but most Nigeria love to believe in conspiracy theories.

The upgrade is not even peculiar to Nigeria. It is a global update.

The meter update, or token identifier (TID) rollover as it is known, is necessary due to a Y2K-style date rollover issue baked into the code of the meters.

When prepaid meters were being designed, the decision was made to attach a section of the 20-digit number that users enter into their prepaid electricity meters to the minute that the token was bought.

This is one way that the tokens are made unique, which is essential as two users cannot be given the same electricity credit token to enter into their meters. This is a functional system, but there is a catch.

There were only so many minutes that could be attached to a token before the number that users entered into their meters became too long. This means that all of the STS-compliant prepaid electricity meters that have been rolled out since 1 January 1993, when prepaid electricity meters began operating, came with a built-in expiry date.

There are a total of 224 minutes that can be attached to a token. That is equal to over 16 million minutes, a little over 279 thousand hours, 11 650 days, or 31.89 years.
Counting that forward from 1 January 1993 gets you to 24 November 2024. After this date, prepaid electricity meters will no longer be able to accept new electricity credit tokens as there will no longer be any new minutes that the token can be attached to.

If the prepaid meters are to remain functional beyond this date, they need to be updated

jmoore:


The purpose has been made known but most Nigeria love to believe in conspiracy theories.

The upgrade is not even peculiar to Nigeria. It is a global update.

we don't hear you!!! Everything in this country is always different. I can't even trust the process infact there is no trust when it comes to issues like this.

Come and upgrade it in the residence of the owners otherwise, it won't work. November 2024 is still far, by then Tinubu will stop being the President and this issue of upgrade would have been gone. I think the upgrade is to guide against bypassing. So when anyone bypasses, it automatically locks.