Bills won’t shoot up due to smart meters: Kahramaa

Kahramaa

Smart meters will not cause any rise in power and water bills, the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has clarified.

Smart meters are known for their precision and effectiveness, according to Kahramaa, who also stated that consumers will only be charged for their monthly consumptions.

According to Kahramaa, smart meters provide the required consumption information automatically across the network, eliminating the need for anyone to physically read it.

The clarification comes in the wake of a series of complaints from residents and citizens of “high readings” by the new meters.

The corporation recently finished setting up a system and a communication network central to its smart meter project that seeks to install 600,000 IoT-enabled meters in cooperation with Vodafone Qatar and Seimens by the end of 2023. It has already seen Kahramaa achieving 42 percent of the target. The corporation said the figure would reach 49 percent by the end of this year. As many as 420,000 smart meters would be installed by the second quarter of 2022.

The project is a qualitative leap in the process of comprehensive digital transformation, in line with the objectives of Qatar National Vision 2030 in development.