Aba Power Ltd, Nigeria’s newest electric power distribution firm, has started an intensive one-year campaign to assist customers in upgrading their prepaid meters so that they will continue to use their current meters to receive power and make payments up to November, next year and beyond.
All meters across the globe will cease to be useful to their owners from November 24 2024 if they fail to migrate to a new system in a phenomenon industry experts call Token Identifier (TID) Rollover.
TID is a number that represents the time that has elapsed since the base date of 1993, according to Cliff Eneh, a former senior manager with the defunct Power Holding Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) who is now both an energy consultant and academic in Lagos.
Eneh, also a former senior manager with Texas Power and Light in the United States, explains that “the TID prevents the use of meter tokens more than once, and so from November 24 2024 the TID in every newly generated token will restart at zero in what is called TID Rollover”.
In a letter to Aba Power customers this morning signed by the utility’s Managing Director, Patrick Umeh, the firm stated that it is beginning the massive public enlightenment campaign a whole year before the disruptive change “we do not want any of our numerous customers to be left behind and consequently suffer the inconvenience of his or her meter becoming obsolete from November 24, next year.
“We are beginning the massive campaign on November 15 2023 to enable our customers to avoid last-minute rush and all the associated problems”.
Umeh, an erstwhile executive with the Los Angeles Water and Power Corporation in the United States before joining the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) as the Commissioner in charge of Markets, Market Rates and Competition, said that every prepaid meter must undergo a key change and memory reset before November 24, 2024.
He added that the changes would be carried at no cost to customers in Aba.
The electricity boss stated that Aba Power has created a website to enable customers to make the changes themselves, giving the website address as abapower.com/tid-tokens.
He advised those who may not be able to make the necessary changes on the website to visit any of the company’s offices for help or to invite the staff to their place to assist them in migrating to the new TID.
Umeh also counselled all customers to load all purchased tokens before upgrading their meters.
Meanwhile, the 200,000-strong Aba Landlords Protection and Development Association (ALPADA) has lauded Aba Power for the early enlightenment campaign on meter upgrades.
“This is a fundamental change in the use of a key utility in the world, and it is just proactive of Aba Power to start this campaign early enough”, declared the ALPADA President General, Chief Alphonsus Udeigbo, in a statement.
“One year is enough time for those in the Aba Metropolis and environs serviced by Aba Power Ltd to change to a new system without difficulties.
Chief Udeigbo pledged that his association “will be in the forefront to get both landlords and tenants, including businesses, to start immediately to migrate to the new system”.
