Five companies won a tender to supply 250,000 smart electricity metres—out of seven companies that submitted their bids to the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy. A source at the ministry said that the consultant of National Service Products Organization (NASPO) completed the technical and financial assessment to send the contracts to the ministry by the end of the week to finalise them before end of this month. He told Daily News Egypt that the list of winning companies include Huawei, ZTE, and Elsewedy Electric. Companies that won the tender must use 25% of components from the local market. El-Husseiny El-Far, a member of the electricity companies' distribution affairs department in the Ministry of Electricity, said that the contracts will be finalised this month. El-Far said that the current tender is set to implement a pilot project for the installation of 250,000 smart metres across six distribution companies, including 50,000 smart metres for both North Cairo Electricity Distribution Company and South Cairo Electricity Distribution Company, as well as 25,000 metres for Middle Egypt Electricity Distribution, South Delta Distribution Company, and Alexandria Electricity Distribution Company, respectively. According to the ministry, the smart metres project will help consumers manage electricity, which would lower their bills. The project also enables clients to pre-pay for their consumption, increase the degree of accuracy of metre reading, and reduce the time period between the metre reading and billing. The smart metres will enable clients to monitor consumption and rationalise use, where the screen of the metre will show all data regarding the remaining balance in KWh, its value in pounds, the remaining days, and the segment on which charges are calculated. The ministry aims to install 20m smart metres during the upcoming 10 years as part of the strategy to eliminate wrong readings and electricity thefts.
