Mozambique Energy Industry: State Electricity Company EdM plans to migrate 12,500 customers to pre-paid system by the end of the year

Mozambican power company Electricidade de Moçambique (EdM) plans to migrate 12,500 of its conventionally-billed customers to a pre-payment system by the end of this year, as part of an operation costing US$1.91 million, the state company told Macauhub in Maputo.

Migrating to Credelec meters, which work by buying credits at shops, ATMs and via mobile phones, will for the time being focus on the Mozambican capital, Maputo where EdM has 261,724 customers, of which 91 percent are already using a pre-paid service, according to the company’s Communications Department.

Focused on customers covered by the social, domestic and general tariffs, the migration will later be extended to the rest of the country and allow customers to “manage their own consumption.”

EdM’s pre-paid meter system was installed for the first time in 1995 as part of a pilot project covering 500 customers. The company is now modernising its power supply system and the new version will cover the whole country by the end of June.

In Maputo the pre-paid meters that are being installed were mostly acquired from South African company Conlog, although, according to EDM, installation and operation of the new system, which is considered to be “complex” is carried out by “several players” from Mozambique, South Africa, Portugal and China. (macauhub/MZ/PT/CN)