As many as 20,000 consumers in Premier Energy’s area of activity will benefit from smart meters in the framework of a pilot energy efficiency project carried out by the Ministry of Energy with the support of UNDP Moldova. According to representatives of the Ministry of Energy, thanks to smart meters, consumers can manage their own energy consumption, IPN reports.
The pilot project to install smart meters to measure electricity is part of the national plan for digitalization of the energy sector. The project launched by the Ministry of Energy with UNDP Moldova funding provides for the installation of 35,000 smart meters for consumers in the Republic of Moldova, of which 20,000 are from the area of activity of Premier Energy Distribution.
“Currently, most of the consumers in Moldova use old-type meters. Because of the old meters, the consumer doesn’t pay for the consumed electricity because Premier Energy employees, for example, collect the information once a month and, based on this information, an approximation of the monthly consumption, plus-minus, is determined. Within the smart meters project, we offer the consumers the possibility of deciding for themselves how much energy to consume, when to consume it and how much to pay for it at the end of the month. The money for piloting the smart meters project comes from the Italian government. It comes to €5 million. The Ministry of Energy doesn’t select the beneficiaries of the project,” State Secretary of the Ministry of Energy Cristina Pereteatcu stated in the program “Freedom Territory”.
Smart meters will measure energy consumption at short intervals and transmit data automatically, securely and without mistakes to the energy distributor, without the need for employees of supply companies to physically read the meters.
“We are in the process of installing the first 3,000 smart meters. By the end of the year, we need to install another 17,000 meters. The total number of meters is 20,000. The beneficiaries of this project were selected based on transparent criteria. There is no nepotism in this project,” explained the representative of Premier Energy Sergiu Petrea.
In the European Union, over 50% of the meters are intelligent, which allowed to reduce by up to 15% the commercial consumption in the network and by 5% for technical losses. Smart grids are based on the need to reduce consumption as much as possible, worldwide, to limit the waste of resources and global warming.
