TECHNO ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LPWAN SMART METER PROJECT TO ESCALATE COMPANY PERFORMANCE & FAIRNESS CONCERN (CASE STUDY: PT PGN, TBK)

• Main Author: Wulandari, Dewi
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/55593
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The construction of a household gas network is one of the Indonesian government's national strategy programs to reduce LPG subsidies.Whereas the RUEN (General National Energy Plan) sets a target of 4.7 million household customers for the construction of a household gas network (2020-2025). This is a challenge for PT PGN Tbk, given that it currently manages over 300,000 households customers, this represents 99 percent of PGN's total customer base. The large number of customers owned contrasts with PGN's revenue from RT/PK customers, which accounts for only 0.39 percent of total PGN gas trading revenue. Household customer operations, on the other hand, have numerous issues, including many household customers who are behind on their payments, resulting in very large receivables, high manual meter recording cost, and difficult access to customers, fraud, etc. Solving these issues necessitates the use of appropriate technology. In this study we evaluate the best smart meter technology based on a strategic combination of price, market acquisition and operations. The pricing strategy is to set the minimum features of the smart meter in order to get the best smart meter price recommendation. The market strategy is that the implementation of the selected smart meter technology must be an open platform technology, which allows domestic resources to actively participate in developing this technology in the future. Operational strategy so that in its implementation various subsidiaries can be involved or if in the future there is a partner strategy, all of them can synchronize in optimizing overall operational costs. The most important thing in choosing smart meter technology, besides price is the mode of communication. The preferred mode of communication must be able to replace manual meter recording, overcome growing arrears of household customer receivables and avoid fraud. We compared various types of smart meter technology, such as LPWAN smart meters, IC card and STS token prepaid meters, and wired communication smart meters (fiber optic connections). The evaluation results show that LPWAN smart meters outperform others. The LPWAN communication mode that we studied is limited to LoraWAN , NB IoT and Sigfox. LoraWAN, the most cost-effective of the three LPWAN communications, best meets the company's requirements. PGN must embrace smart meters because they provide both tangible and intangible benefits. The benefit calculation is based on a comparison of the difference between the total cost of ownership from investment and operating costs smart meters versus conventional meters, which results in a break-even point in the 7th year. Implementing smart meters can reduce operational costs associated with customer handling activities in arrears and reduce the risk of potential receivables growing in size as the number of household customers grows.