* We will provide electricity units on credit for customers without the capacity to buy the two-month worth of units in advance
* These units will be recovered through deductions from electricity units purchased after the meter replacements
By Duncan Mlanjira
Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) alerts the public that the Token Identifier Project (TID) which it rolled out in June 2023 to upgrade all pre-paid meters is still on-going and that some meters will be non-compliant by November 24.
Thus ESCOM is request customers whose meters would not have been upgraded by November 24 to buy in advance electricity units for the next two months and the company shall “provide electricity units on credit for customers without the capacity to buy the two-month worth of units in advance”.
“These units [to be provided on credit] will be recovered through deductions from electricity units purchased after the meter replacements.
The Token Identifier (TID) was rolled out in June 2023 to upgrade all prepaid meters from Key Revision Number 1 (KRN 1) to KRN 2 by November 24, 2024 is a project that complies with the new international requirements for transferring electricity prepayment tokens.
ESCOM says the project has since registered significant progress with 610,387 meters out of the targeted 630,033 upgraded and 19,646 remaining as of Saturday, November 9, 2024 — representing a 97% success rate.
“Among these 19,646 meters, 12,218 meters have non-compliance issues which we are resolving,” says ESCOM in the public notice. “These non-compliant meters start with digits reading: 3711…3712… & 37132…
“We expect to clear all the non-compliance issues by the end of January 2025,” says the statement, adding that ESCOM will release a list of meters that will not have been replaced by November 24, through its official Facebook page @ escommalawilimited and X.com handle @ESCOM_Malawi.
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There are 7,428 customers whom ESCOM has been “unable to reach for various reasons” and thus appeals to such customers to contact the company through the following phone numbers: 0884932455 (Northern Region); 0885730425 (Central Region); 0889764780 (Southern Region) and 0889641153 (Eastern Region).
They can also visit ESCOM customer service centres across the country by November 18, 2024, “to speed up the process of replacing their meters”.
“Take note that prepaid electricity units purchases for all upgraded meters indicate KRN2 on the receipts while the un-upgraded ones indicate KRN1.
“Therefore, contact us if your receipt indicates KRN 1 for us to upgrade your meter,” said the statement.
When announcing the rolling out of the Token Identifier (TID) project in Blantyre last year, ESCOM’s Chief Operations Officer, Maxwell Mulimakwenda indicated that this was in compliance with new international requirements for transfer of electricity prepayment tokens.
Mulimakwenda emphasised that every country in the world was being required to carry out this system upgrade, saying the last operation was done in 1993.
He said TID has a lifespan of 31.9 years and the current security lifespan will expire on November 24, 2024 — thus ESCOM rolling out the exercise well in advance in order to service all of its 537,000 prepaid meters on the network.
From June 1, 2023, customers were expected to receive three once-off tokens once they replenish their units and the first two were to indicate 20 digits as change tokens and the third were to be the normal electricity units.
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Customers were expected to ensure that their meter is reconfigured by entering the Key Change Tokens in the rightful order as advised on the receipt slip of the notification SMS from Mpamba, Airtel Money or Bank accounts.
And after successful completion of the Key Change process, customers were thereafter expected to continue to receive one token for units that would have been purchased.
Mulimakwenda further explained that ESCOM’s prepaid meters use a secure communication protocol to transfer information from the point of sale (POS) vending point to the energy meter which is call Standard Transfer Specification, saying the “20-digit token that customers receive has inbuilt unique security code thus named as Token Identifier — which is time stamped”.
After November 24, 2024, as said by Mulimakwenda last year, the pre-paid meters that would have not been rolled over will not accept any new token and the next TID rollover process will take place in 2045.
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