Metering, Billing and Revenue Collection

Meter reading

Meter reading is defined as the act of measuring physical quantities (energy in case of electric power system) with the aid of certain meters or instruments. It can also refer to the datum about some physical state which is obtained by using a meter and some other instruments. Meter reading, in the case of electric power system, is done to determine and record the amount of actual energy consumption by an individual customer over a period of specific time. Generally, meter readings are conducted on a monthly basis or once in two months or once in three months. They may be done either by the utility itself by appointing meter readers or on some contract basis through some contractors.

The task of meter reading differs significantly in urban and rural areas. Due to large population density in urban areas, the task of meter reading becomes easier though time-consuming. The settlements in urban areas are dense and the person in charge of meter reading doesn't have to travel a significant distance in order to perform meter reading in the next household.

But in the case of rural areas, the task of meter reading is both tedious and time-consuming. In fact, the meter reading is one of the most complicated tasks in rural electrification because of low settlement density in those areas. For conducting the process for just a few households, the person in charge may have to travel a significant distance. In addition to this problem, poor transportation facility in rural areas also serves to increase the complication of the process and increases the total cost of the process as a whole.

The cost of meter reading includes staff benefits as well as the cost of transportation. In some cases, the person in charge of meter reading may have to travel so much that the overall transportation cost becomes more than the billed amount of a rural community. Likewise, in some cases, a rural consumer may have to travel a significant distance if the revenue is to be deposited at a central office. The transportation cost, in this case, may exceed the billed amount of the consumer as well. This is one of the major reasons why major utilities such as NEA are not interested in the process of rural electrification. In most of the cases, electrification in rural areas yields a little profit to the utilities.

Billing

Billing is defined as the cost of goods or services billed to the customers. It can also be defined as the process of sending an invoice to the customers for goods or services. An invoice can be defined as a commercial document which is issued by the seller to a buyer or a customer that states all the transactions, agreed rate and goods or services provided to the buyer or customer. In electric power systems, billing is done on the basis of actual energy consumption of the consumer and the tariff which is applicable to the consumers.

The general types of tariff in practice are as follows:

Power based tariff:

This tariff does not take into account the actual energy consumed and is set as per the subscribed demand. This is the simplest form of tariff and is applied when the number of electric appliances of the consumers is small and fixed. The total billed amount to the consumer is obtained by multiplying the number of the appliances with the rate per KW. For example, if 'a' is the number of lamps or connected load in KW and 'x' is the rate per lamp or rate per KW, then the total energy charge is obtained by multiplying 'a' and 'x'. This type of tariff is generally applied in micro hydro power plants and other small installations.

Two parts tariff:

In this type of tariff, billing is done in two parts namely demand charge (fixed charge) and energy charge (running charge). The demand charge is independent of energy consumed and is set as per the subscribed demand. The energy charge is made on the basis of actual energy consumption and is obtained by multiplying the rate per unit of KWh consumed and total KWh consumed. The total billed amount is the sum of demand charge and energy charge.

Revenue collection

Revenue collection is defined as the process of collecting the billed amount from the consumers in return for the goods or services provided to them. Revenue collection is a complicated task in rural areas due to the reasons as explained in the article of meter reading.

The general practices in revenue collections are as follows.

Center collection

In this method, a center or a utility for the collection of revenues is allocated and the consumers are required to deposit the billed amounts in that center.

Mobile collection

In this method, the utility appoints and mobilizes a team which is in charge of collecting the revenues from different areas at specified time.

Collection during meter reading

In this method, the revenue is collected from the consumers during the meter reading process by the person who is in charge.

Collection on contract

In this method, the revenue is collected by the agents who are contracted by the electricity utilities. The agents are responsible for reading the meters of the consumers and are paid on the basis of the amount fixed per meter reading and the numbers of meters read by the agents.

References

1. Wikipedia. (2016).Invoice.Retrieved fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/

Information from class notes and handouts provided by my subject teacher Mr. Gopal Joshi Subedi have also been used.