NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan telecoms operator Safaricom,, said on Friday it had submitted a proposal to Kenya Power for the installation of a $300 million smart meter system at the utility, confirming documents seen by Reuters.
The telecoms firm said in a statement it was now waiting for feedback from the state utility, adding that it would install and operate the smart meter system for eight years before transferring it to Kenya Power.
The state-controlled utility, which is the main power distributor in the East African nation, suffers from annual power system losses of 23.46% on its transmission network, well above the global benchmark of 15%.
The system proposed by Safaricom, will use the Internet of Things, an advanced Internet technology that allows real time monitoring of the grid, to cut the losses by eight percentage points in two years, it said in the documents.
(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; editing by Jason Neely and Alexander Smith)
