Using remotely reading electronic meters
Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Duc - Deputy General Director of EVNSPC said: In order to improve its technical management capacity, as of August 2018, the Corporation has completed the remote control of 220 existing substations and been remotely controlling 741/905 equipment on the medium voltage power grid.
In particular, in 2017, 92 substations were converted from remotely controlled to unmanned, mobile and on-site operation teams at substations were established. The Corporation strives for upgrading firewalls, gateways, remote access relay system, surveillance camera system and fire protection system, etc. to convert all remotely controlled substations to unmanned substations in 2018.
EVNSPC signed a contract with Viettel to apply IT in managing, operating and improving the quality of customer service.
Regarding the application of new technology in business, EVNSPC has been developing electronic meters and remote automatic meter reading systems; managing and exploiting the systems based on geographical characteristics, telecommunication infrastructure and types of customers, ensuring the consistency, integration, inheritance and expandability of the systems.
By the end of May 2018, power companies had installed 2.3 million PLC – based (power line communication) smart meters, 13,277 DCUs (data concentrator units) at 185 power utilities; remote meter reading for up to 1.9 million meters (the remaining meters will use remote reading system after DCUs are installed); the power sales being metered via remote meter reading systems accounted for 12% of the total power sales of EVNSPC. The remote meter reading systems were installed and put into operation stably for 44,599 meters of large electricity customers who purchased electricity through dedicated substations, controlling more than 63% of the total power sales of the Corporation (not including substations of dragon fruit plantation customers).
Providing information and power trading service online
The Corporation has been building and perfecting infrastructure and developing information technology resources to enable EVNSPC to become an electronic enterprise, applying information technology to the management and operation of production and business activities, improving labor productivity and reducing operation expenses; facilitating the provision of information and power trading services to customers online, making the electricity supply more transparent and simpler, and better serving customers; applying information technology to the management and operation of Smart Grid system.
In addition, EVNSPC has been promoting the application of information technology in production management and business services such as electronic payment system through serverbanking and post offices, electronic invoices, etc.; reading meters and erasing debts by smartphones and applying tablets to survey and supply electricity for customers after public substations, equipping bluetooth printers to display electricity consumption indexes and predict payable electricity cost right after reading meters.
EVNSPC sets targets that by 2020, 100% of remotely reading electronic meters will be installed in districts, cities, towns and island communes, this number for the remaining districts and communes will be 25%; the entire payment of electricity bills will be done through banking systems / payment intermediaries; the power loss rate will decrease to 4.15%; SAIDI will be only 306 minutes.
By the end of May 2018, the number of customers paying electricity bills through banks / payment intermediaries of EVNSPC was 2,111,651 customers.