The Ministry of Electricity and Water will implement the "prepaid power meter" system in apartments, shops and malls , said a senior ministry of official, adding that the system will not include private homes, such villas because they belong to a high-bracket segment of consumers.

The main objective of the system is to collect the ministry's dues ahead of power consumption for the aim of controlling energy consumption" ministry's Assistant Undersecretary for Consumer Affairs Eng. Jasem Al-Lanqawi told the Kuwait Times on Tuesday.

The senior official yet affirmed that any attempts of robbery or misuse of electricity will be followed up by the ministry. This system will be apllied all over the six governorates in Kuwait. He did not give a specific date though he promised that the ministry will do its best to apply this measure as soon as possible.

Earlier press reports had indicated that the ministry is likely to begin the implementation of the new meter system by this year-end. He pointed out that up to 300,000 new power meters will be placed in apartments and shops. "Each meter is a keypad machine on itself. It has been tested to stand the harsh weather of Kuwait and would not be affected by dust," Al-Lanqawi explained.

He indicated that this device will be placed in each apartment through a keypad in order to streamline the recharging process. " It can be recharged through purchasing a card from any vendor machine and applying the pin number to the machine where it will be automatically recharged," he added.

The official said that Recharge cards will be made available to the public across the country with values that vary from one Kuwaiti dinar up to KD 1,000.
These cards do not have specific duration of validity as they are subject to the size of consumption," As Al-Lanqawi elaborated.

He said the new meter can be purchased from the ministry through a deposit paid directly by the subscriber to the ministry. He added that the rate of this deposit is to protect public funds in case of misuse. The deposit money as Al-Lanqawi explained will be between 200 and 400 U.S. dollars which is the actual price of the meter.

The deposit will be returned to the consumer after he or she leaves the apartment. Also he added that the known rate of the consumption of electricity is two fils per one kilowatt, and this rate will be followed in the prepaid recharge cards rates.

The capacity of those machines begins from 40 to 100 amperes. While most of private villas have higher consumption of power. "The ministry has applied another system for the private homes that suits the high consumption of energy which is a smart meter," said Al Lanqawi, clarifying that this system will be revealed to the puiblic at a later stage.

This move comes under a swath of measures approved by the Kuwaiti government in a campaign to collect overdue bills. This was clarified by Al-Lanqawi where he explained that these measures are not aimed at expatriates alone, but it will apply on all subscribers. Most apartments in the country are usually occupied by expatriates from various nationalities, as they cannot own homes in Kuwait.

He then went into the issue of electricity outage in Kuwait, saying that this issue is not about insufficiency of electricity power but because of the theft of the power which is concentrated mainly in areas like Julaib Al Shyoukh, and this causes extra consumption which gradually leads to a power cut-offs. Mainly this area is occupied by non-Kuwaitis (90 percent) and they use cables without a meter, thus they coy could disconnect a meter, this usage occurs without referring to the ministry and this causes the
imbalance in power distribution and consumption. "It is not because there is not enough generators, but due to the misusage of power" said Al-Lanqawi

Kuwait Times