Egypt's ministry of housing has postponed receiving bids from companies over the tender launched by the ministry to supply 250,000 smart electricity meters until the middle of August. A source in the Ministry of Electricity said that the short list of bids includes 19 companies in the smart meters project and five companies in the Data Centre project. The ministry excluded 35 bids as they did not meet the specifications of the tender. The source told Daily News Egypt that the short list of the smart meters project includes Ericsson, Raya, Siemens, Alkan, Huawei, Dongfang Electric Corporation, Shayna Machinery, ZTE, Scope Optics Factory, Iskra, and Elsewedy. He added that the short list of the Data Centre project includes Huawei, ZTE, Raya, Ericsson, and Alkan. The current tender aims to implement a trial project for the installation of just 250,000 smart meters divided among six companies for the distribution of electricity. North Cairo, South Cairo, and Canal companies for electricity distribution will have 50,000 smart meters each. Each of Middle Egypt, South Delta, and Alexandria companies for electricity distribution will receive 25,000 smart meters. The Ministry of Electricity tasked a subsidiary of the National Service Products Organisation (NSPO) to conduct the consultancy of the tender and choose the winning company during the third quarter of this year. The source said that according to the list announced in the tender for supplying 3m smart electricity meters before it was cancelled, Huawei, ZTE, Elsewedy, and Ericsson were chosen as the four best companies that presented technical and financial offers. The smart meters project works to help the consumer improve their use of energy, which would lead to reducing consumption costs. It would also enable advance payment, increase the accuracy of taking consumption measurements, and decrease the time period between taking consumption measurements and issuing the bills. The source said also that the smart meters enable the subscribers to monitor and decrease consumption. The meters' screens show the data of the remaining credit in kilowatt/hour, the value in Egyptian pounds, and the days left of the credit. In addition, users would be able to know their consumption segment upon which the amount of the bill is decided. He said that the meter is equipped with a light that turns on when the credit reaches 25% of its value and flashes when the credit reaches 10% of its value to give the consumer a chance to renew their credit before it runs out. source: Daily news Egypt
