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Power firms explore technology to tackle power theft, others(Nation, The (Nigeria) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Successor firms from the privatised Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) are exploring the application of technology to address both technical and commercial challenges besetting the industry. No fewer than seven of the 11 distribution companies (DISCOs) are in talks with Polish software giant, Asseco Group to deploy its range of solutions to address the teething problems of the industry, The Nation gathered at the weekend. Chief Executive Officer, Asseco Nigeria, Simon Melchior said the tech firm's solutions could drive down technical and commercial losses to as low as less than five per cent from 30 per cent. Melchior, who is also its West African representative, said there was similarity in terms of the experience of Poland and other countries in Eastern Europe where it has successfully deployed its solutions to that of Nigeria, adding that the power stations too went through the same problem before stabilising. He said: "We are at various stages of discussion with almost all the DISCOs. Already, seven out of the 11 are already looking at deploying our utility management solutions for power distribution in terms of billing application, meter data acquisition, revenue collection management, customer relation management (CRM) and other modules around the core applications. "There is the Asseco Utility Management Solution (AUS) which deals with inventory management, in terms of workflow management and outage management. These applications will perform when there is power and when there are outages." He lamented that the DISCOs that had invested substantially to acquire the power firms are not only confronted with the problem of getting power to distribute, they are also bogged down by challenges such as high loss due to energy theft, wild 'connection' and duplicated duplication of customer billings. "The tools will reduce their technical and commercial losses on distribution from above 30 per cent to less than five per cent. They DISCOs are challenged with the problems of high energy theft, wild connection, duplicated customer billings and estimated billings. These issues are also present in Eastern Europe," he said, adding that in Poland, there are five DISCOs and a total of about 5.3million customers while in Nigeria, there are only about 600,000 customers. He said the firm had grown its global footprints rapidly over the past decade and is now operating in over 40 countries with 17,000 employees worldwide. Its Managing Director, Adefolu Majekodunmi, said the focus of the Nigerian entity will be to build a strong local expertise in four primary sectors financial services (banking, insurance, capital markets), fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), utilities (power, water, gas) and public sector (health, defense, and social services). He said: "The Asseco Group has significant experience developing solutions in the sectors we focus on. It has developed complex software solutions for major public and private sector institutions throughout Europe and the Middle East. "Our unique strategy for Nigeria is to combine local software development in addition to providing our established know-how. We are here for the long term and plan to be at the forefront of technology automation in the public sector and emerging private sector. "We will build our growth on local added value in the form of local software development." |