Meter reading in the Philippines

A portable thermal receipt printer was used to solve a difficult problem by an electricity company that supplies electricity to an area six hours north of Manila, Philippines. The mountainous terrain, lack of a modern road network, and long distances between customers made billing and meter reading difficult and accurate record keeping impossible.

The Problem

Meter readers travel on motorcycles. There was no logical way to plan their routes in the cities. In rural areas, they followed power lines off dirt track roads, until they found a meter at the end of a cable. They matched the meter's serial number to that on a card and wrote in the new reading. At the day's end, the data was entered in to the company’s computer system. Bills were printed and delivered by a team of distributors, who retraced the previous day's routes. Customers paid cash or had seven days to make payment at the nearest company office. Some meter readers could not find or be bothered to look for customers, so they simply made up the numbers.

The Solution

The electricity company equipped each meter reader with a mobile payment system that included a thermal printer and custom software. After entering the new reading into the hand-held computer, meter readers print out and deliver the electricity bills in the same visit. Back at the office, the workstations are docked and data entered. Information is available to counter staff at the company’s collection centres. They enter the customer's account number into their desk top when presented with the bill, confirm the amount payable, collect payment, and print out a receipt.

The Benefits of a Mobile Payment System

An engineer at the electricity company said the benefits were immediate. The company reduced the number of meter readers from 45 to 25, reduced the data entry staff from 15 to 5, eliminated the 43 bill distributors, and reduced the administrative staff who re-keyed the data.

With instant billing, the payment collection cycle was shortened. The software includes a prompt which is a description of the next meter to be read, overcoming the problem of route planning.

Made up readings have been eliminated, since they instantly show up as anomalies. In addition, the hand held computer's internal clock imprints the time the entry was made, allowing studies to be conducted.

Improved Power Usage Efficiency

The company found a significant side benefit with its new system- a 5% improvement in overall power usage efficiency, resulting in the reduction of 'systems loss'. When the company draws down power from the National Grid, it is charged according to a meter reading taken at the sub stations serving the company. For the first time, they are able to determine precisely how much electricity they are selling.

Speeding up the billing process identified a 20% discrepancy between what the electricity company was drawing down and what it was selling. Meter readers record their observations directly into the mobile payment system and have identified direct theft and broken cables. As a result, the 20% discrepancy has been reduced to 15%, allowing the company to recoup in excess of $780,000 (US) annually.