Two families in Vaitele and Siusega have raised concerns about the Electric Power Corporation’s WST$4.1 million smart meter program, saying the new system is an inconvenience for the family and will cost more. 

Vaitele resident Reupena Ahken told the Samoa Observer that the corporation’s old cash power system, which was in place prior to the rolling out of the smart meter program, wasn’t an inconvenience for family members and didn’t cost more.

“The [old] cash power had a warning sign which told us that we needed to top up our meter unit, but this [smart] meter you had to check every two to three days to find out how much power is left,” he said in an interview.

“If you miss checking your meter and run out of units, it takes more than an hour for the smart meter providers to connect the electricity power to your house.

“The E.P.C. uses the phone as a way to tell us about our meter unit but sometimes our phones are off or we can’t check messages every day, but the cash power has that siren sound that informs us when it's $10 [of units] left.”

The smart meter system is also more expensive, according to Mr Ahken and used as an example of how many electricity units $10 can offer when compared to the old system.

“When we buy $10 cash power, we always get more units like 14 or 15 units, but smart meters when you buy $10 power you will get 10 units flat.”

There is also the challenge of the delay in the electricity units getting credited to the family’s smart meter, added Mr Ahken.

“I remember the other night after we entered our meter card at around 6pm, it took us up to 10.30pm until we had our lights on again. 

“We also called the E.P.C. and maintenance staff came to our house and fixed the problem. 

“Since we’ve had this [smart] meter, we haven’t been using our freezer because it’s expensive, we prioritize our use of electricity every week to minimize the bills we pay.”

For Siusega resident Temukisa Api, the long delay in their smart meter system getting credited with electricity units is what frustrates her, as well as the lack of notification when power runs out.

“We are not aware sometimes when our meter unit is finished but we still get the electricity power from 'IOU' which we pay later when we top up our unit,” she told this newspaper.

“Their service is very slow when I called them to top up my meter unit the other day, it took almost two hours for them to respond.

“It was not the first time, I ended up calling my husband who worked that night to come home because it was just me and our kids at home.

“I called them so many times but they said that their software system is slow and [there’s] interference so they can’t put the power straight into people's houses.”

Mrs Api – who claimed there were instances of their power going off when their children were doing homework or they had visitors – urged the E.P.C. to provide awareness on the new smart meter system, prior to rolling them out to residents.

Attempts by the Samoa Observer to get comments from the E.P.C. management were unsuccessful.

The smart meter system was rolled out on a trial basis last year to parts of Vaitele, Siusega, Falelauniu, Nuu Fou and Aele.