Components
The prepayment electricity system main components can be summarized as follows:

- Digital Meters installed at the customer's place and equipped with an Info-Pod unit, an electronic circuit that allows remote communication to the meter via the HHU.

- Hand Held Unit (HHU), a portable device that allows data transfer to and from the meter.

- Server Station: located at EDZ offices and running special software that manages all system operation.




- Vending Stations: to be installed in scattered locations to ease the process of issuing customers tokens.

- Token: a print out generated by the vending stations showing the encrypted value of the customer energy purchase.

Description
The system is distinguished by a full closed loop interoperation between its components. The customer buys energy, receives a token, enters the token into his meter and the actual consumption of the meter is fed back to the server station through the hand held unit that reads the meter's info-pod and transfer the data back to the server to complete the loop.

The system main functions are:

- Data is centralized into the server and shared online with the vending stations.

- Purchase is made at the vending stations. The generated token is encrypted and can only be entered into the buying customer's own meter.

- The meter is specially designed with a keypad interface. When charged, the entered token is decrypted and the units bought add up to the existing amount in the meter.

- Meters data collection is processed remotely through the HHU to be transferred to the server station.

- A reconciliation procedure is then initiated for every customer at the end of each month.

Benefits
The implementation of a prepayment electricity system would provide the following benefits:

- Cancellation of post payment, bill collection, late payments and disconnections processing.

- Meter tampering detection at the customer level.