UNIVERSITY of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) students have developed prepaid electricity metres that recharge power automatically after completing a transaction through a mobile phone.
A team leader of the students, Julius Marenga, who pursues a Computer Engineering and Information Technology (BSc in CEIT) told the `Daily News’ that their ‘Luku Chap Metre,’ unlike others that need manual transfer of paying through a phone or from a vendor, it recharges power directly from a mobile phone.
“This meter cuts the hassle of visiting a vendor to recharge grid electric to homes or punching numbers from phone or vendor to the metre, it works for you,” Mr Marenga said.
The Luku Chap Metre also enables users, up to four, to share a phone when purchasing electricity since everyone will be given a personal password.
Mr Marenga said seven students, two pursuing computer engineering and five doing electrical engineering, are behind the smart meter and expect to go into production soon after receiving a blessing from Tanesco.
“I am a victim of struggling to buy electric when paid amount went out. Thus the burden to buy electricity at the middle of our discussion at night made us to come with this idea,” said Mr Marenga.
“When power goes out the first thing is to ask among friends who has a sufficient balance on phone and the second is to punch the numbers after buying electricity.
“This is cumbersome procedure. Our metres solve the hassle for punching numbers at bad hours and one can recharge his meter wherever s/he is.”
Mr Marenga said it took six months to put the idea together and come up with the smart metre after a trial and error while spending some 400,000/-.
“Tanesco is our main customer and were figuring out the price to be around 350,000/- to 400,000/-,” he said.
Marenga said the project involved seven students, two pursuing computer engineering and the rest pursuing electrical engineering.
