An Assessment of Consumers’ Experiences and the Desired Improvements on the use of the Existing Prepayment Meters in Parts of Benin City and Warri in Nigeria

Authors: Amhenrior HE

DOI Info: N/A

ABSTRACT

In this paper, an assessment of prepayment electricity consumers’ experiences and the desired improvements on existing meters in parts of Benin City and Warri was carried out. The methodology involved field data collection through the use of questionnaires on electricity consumers especially those using prepayment meters in Benin City, Edo State and Warri, Delta State. The field data were collated and analysed to determine the extent the suggested improvements were actually desired by the users. The results show that no existing prepayment meter in the areas can be recharged through mobile phone and majority (97.09%) of the meters in the areas are keypad operated. Out of the 76.87% of the metered consumers’ houses with existing prepayment meters, 66.02% prefer to recharge token using mobile devices and 68.45% want to be able to obtain unit balance, time of power failure and restoration through mobile devices. Some (82.03%) desire at least one of these improvements. Also, from the results, educational level affects the acceptability of improvement in the meter. It is recommended that designers and engineers of prepayment meters should be guided by the outcome of this research on the needed improvement from the consumers’ perspective to advance the meters for better performance.

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