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Case Study
In Liberia, prepaid
meter project benefits
community members,
utilities, and small
businesses
Bringing Power to Poor Communities
Photo: IRG Ltd.
This young lady knows she can always
find cold drinks at Victoria Johnson’s
Wroto Town shop.
“In the past, I put up with
a noisy generator and high
maintenance costs. I really
appreciate this metering
system because I buy what
I need, what I can afford and
it’s totally reliable” Victoria
Johnson, shop owner.
Challenge
In war-torn Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, electricity is scarce, unreliable,
and expensive. Businesses, clinics, and households depend largely
on noisy diesel generators that often break down. Variable fuel prices
and theft cause problems for those who rely on electricity to support
their livelihoods. The Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) historically
experienced losses of 40% due to electricity theft and inefficiencies
in its metering, billing and collection processes, sometimes facing
politically motivated resistance to disconnections. Adding to the
challenge, low–income customers sometimes cannot afford to pay their
electricity bill, leading LEC to disconnect their power.
Initiative
A USAID project conducted a pilot project to supply prepaid electricity
to low–income urban communities. Prepaid meters help customers pay
for and use power according to their means. The project employed
a sustainable business model through a process similar to prepaid
cellular phone cards. A local vendor buys electricity in bulk from LEC
and earns a small commission by distributing it to the community as
needed. Using individually numbered tokens, customers purchase
electricity from the vendor in whatever amount they can afford at that
time. The vendor processes the transaction and issues a receipt with
a purchase code that the customer then enters into his meter. A simple
system of LED lights indicates the rate of electricity consumption and
when it is time to recharge. During the first year, 27 customers in Wroto
Town participated in the pilot phase of the project.
Results
The USAID–supported project benefitted customers, utilities, and smallbusiness
owners. In Wroto Town, none of the 27 project participants
had their service disconnected; in contrast, 71 out of 106 customers
on conventional meters were disconnected at least once. Aggressive
energy monitoring, a project activity, reduced losses to LEC to around
14%. Better electricity access also benefitted local business owners.
One such owner, Victoria Johnson, runs a small shop in Wroto Town
where she sells cold drinks. During the project, her sales increased 50
percent while her electricity bill decreased by half. “In the past, I put up
with a noisy generator and high maintenance costs. I really appreciate
this metering system because I buy what I need, what I can afford
and it’s totally reliable,” said Johnson. Following the pilot phase, 102
additional prepaid meters were installed on Bushrod Island.
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