The rollout of a digital electricity metering system has helped the Islamabad Electric Supply Company address longstanding problems within its distribution network, commercial and billing systems, and electricity theft, while also allowing consumers to receive faster resolutions to their complaints. More than 1.2 million Advanced Metering Infrastructure meters have now been installed across the Rawalpindi City Circle, Rawalpindi Cantonment Circle, and Taxila Division, covering domestic, commercial, and industrial consumers throughout these areas.
The project, funded by the Asian Development Bank with an allocation of 160 million dollars, was originally launched in 2016, with the project contract signed in 2022 and actual implementation work beginning in January 2023. Under the initiative, industrial units and consumers using more than 500KW of electricity were shifted onto the AMI system first, giving Iesco the ability to monitor meters, transformers, and medium voltage feeders across the covered regions in real time. Continuous monitoring of the installed meters has reduced tampering incidents to only a handful of cases among the approximately 1.2 million meters now in operation, representing what is being described as a pioneering initiative within Pakistan’s power distribution sector.
Consumers are now able to check their hourly electricity consumption directly, while the system also allows Iesco to monitor fluctuations and resolve issues immediately as they arise. The project has reached 99 percent physical progress overall, with the successful installation of 1.2 million smart meters through mass rollout activities standing as one of its key milestones. The Head End System supporting the network is now fully operational, and integration of the billing system has also been substantially completed. A central control room has been established to store meter data, backed by a data center in Gujar Khan that allows for data recovery in the event of any system fault, with information transferred from individual meters to the control room through Power Line Communication technology.
Line losses across the Iesco region have been reduced to 7.6 percent, the lowest recorded figure in the country, a result directly attributed to the AMI metering system. AMI meters have been installed on every transformer and in individual households to monitor incoming and outgoing electricity loads, enabling Iesco to detect theft, identify technical faults, and address line losses through continuous real time monitoring. Any anomaly detected by the system immediately generates tampering and event alerts, which are reported to the relevant maintenance and technical teams for field verification and corrective action. With all industrial units in the Iesco region already converted to the AMI system, domestic and commercial consumers are expected to be transitioned to the new metering system in the near future as the rollout continues to expand.
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