The Impact of Smart Prepaid Metering on Non-Technical Losses in Ghana

The high incidence of electricity theft, meter tampering, bypassing, reading errors, and defective aged meters, among others, increases utility losses, especially non-technical losses (NTL). A in Ghana piloted a loss reduction program 2019 to replace postpaid meters with anti-tamper, anti-fraud, anti-theft smart prepaid meters. By using customer-level residential billing panel data from 2018 obtained the utility, we assess effectiveness this difference-in-differences fixed-effect approach. On average, results indicated that reported amount customers’ monthly consumption by 13.2% when any tampered is replaced meter, indicating NTLs customers. We further employed quantile regression observed energy has increased for all households except those at lower (25th quantile). conclude metering could be remedy reduce distribution sector areas where theft rampant.