Empresa Nacional de Energia Electrica (ENEE) is realizing significant cost savings and revenue recovery since it inaugurated Elster Electricity's EnergyAxis System in San Pedro SulaSan Pedro Sula, Honduras's second-largest city.

Since launching the system on May 11, ENEE has remotely performed 1500 service disconnections and 1459 service connections, resulting in a savings of US$14,000 in personnel and vehicle costs. Revenue losses from tampering have already been reduced by $2 million in San Pedro Sula.

One of the primary drivers for ENEE's AMI project was to reduce nontechnical losses and improve cash flow through early tamper detection and remote disconnection for problem accounts. Prior to the start of the project, ENEE's nontechnical losses averaged 25% countrywide, with a value of $60 million. ENEE expects the EnergyAxis System to help them lower non-technical revenue losses significantly by the end of 2007 and see the system pay for itself in less than two years.

ENEE began system installation in December 2006 in San Pedro Sula. ENEE installed 21,000 Elster Electricity REX meters with an optional service control switch that allows the company to remotely disconnect and reconnect a customer's electricity without having to visit the meter.

The electronic REX meter is designed for residential metering. With two-way communications, it offers demand, time-of-use (TOU), load-profile recording, bi-directional metering and critical tier pricing (CTP) capabilities in addition to kilowatt-hour consumption measurement.

San Pedro Sula accounts for approximately 60% of the electricity sold by the utility and 70% of its revenue. Additional REX meters were installed in other smaller urban areas in Honduras, and there are plans to install meters in some of the other main cities in the country.

ENEE expects to realize the full benefits of its AMI project upon implementing prepayment functionality by the end of 2007. TOU tariffs will be implemented in the near future to encourage energy conservation and provide more services to the citizens of Honduras.