Muscat Electricity Distribution Company (MEDC) is planning to invest in new metering technology to improve its services and efficiency in the future, the company’s chief operating officer Mansoor Talib al-Hinai told MEED’s Oman Investment Forum 2012 on 9 October.

The plans include investing in automated meter-reading technology. The company will start providing this service to 2,000 of its biggest consumers and will expand the offering to 20,000 accounts over the next five years.

More investment is planned for prepaid meters, which the company introduced in the Muscat area in 2010 when it installed the system for 500 accounts. The company now plans to use prepaid metres for all prepaid customers in 2013. “Studies show that Oman is a prepaid market for telcos,” says Al-Hinai. “We think it will be the same for electricity.”

Digital meters will also be used more in the future. Introduced in 2008, there are currently 10,000 digital meters in the Muscat area. MEDC plans to replace 15,000 existing connections with digital meters each year. It will also use digital meters for all new connections, of which it expects about 20,000 connections a year.