BY AKUDORO GLORIA
The public have been assured of the readiness of the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) to ensure that all electricity meters and instruments deployed in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) are of the right standard, specification, safety and quality.
NEMSA’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Engr. Aliyu Tukur Tahir, who gave the assurance noted that it would help to guarantee accuracy and record energy consumed as well as safety of lives and property.
Engineer Tahir said this at the weekend while reacting to electricity consumers inquiries over the ongoing discussion on the issue of Standard Transfer Specification (STS) prepaid meters upgrading by means of Token Identifier (TID) rollover set to commence soon by the distribution companies in Nigeria.
This is contained in a statement issued by the Head Communication and Protocol Unit Chief, Mrs. Ama Umoren on Sunday in Abuja.
Tahir who also doubled as the Chief Electrical Inspector of the Federation, urged electricity consumers not to fear, stressing that the Token Identifier (TID) is a 24-bit field, contained in STS compliant tokens, that identifies the date and time of the token generation.
He added that the TID is not only used to determine if a token has already been used in a prepaid meter, but also represents the number of minutes elapsed since the base date of 1st January 1993.
He said: “The incrementing of the 24-bit field means that at some point in time, the TID value will roll over to a zero value.”
The MD explained further that in order to overcome the TID rollover occurrence, all meters will require key change tokens with the roll over bit set which will be provided by the Utility Companies when the key change tokens are imputed.
The process, he added, will force the meters to reset the TID stack memory to 0 and change the meter key at the same time.
He clarified: “This process will not make energy meters fast or slower, hence, there is no need for panic and that the TID rollover will NOT alter or change the meteorological 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, that the Distribution Companies (DISCOs) will provide their prepaid meter customers Key Change Tokens (KCT) alongside their regular energy tokens when purchasing electricity,” the statement noted.
Tahir disclosed further that the prepaid meter end-users will be involved in the final piece of the puzzle – the TID rollover key change process that involves a special pair of tokens called a key change token (KCT) that would be entered into the prepaid meter to finalize the update of the prepaid meter software.
He reiterated that the need for customers to upgrade their prepaid meters by sequentially entering the two KCT tokens (KCT1 & KCT2) and then the energy token, as to be provided by the DISCO. Customers must ensure that any unused or previously purchased energy tokens are loaded into their meters before the expiry date.
“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,” Tahir said.