Factors Affecting Consumers’ Intention to Adopt Prepaid e-Metering System in Bangladesh: A Study on Dhaka City

Abstract

As a solution to the problem of non-technical losses of electricity, Bangladesh Government has taken an initiative to install pre-paid meters in every household or organization throughout the country. As it is a new technology for the citizens, the necessity of conducting research on users’ perspective to understand their intention to adopt it has become crucial for its flawless operations further. On that note, this paper aims to focus on the factors affecting private consumers’ and business enterprises’ intention to adopt the e-metering system in Dhaka city. Although DESCO and DPDC claim to provide multiple number of benefits to its users, but the users might have a different viewpoint about its ultimate benefits. In order to measure the users’ intention, an extended version of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been used by adding perceived risk and social influence with its original parameters. A total number of 47 users, including households and business enterprises, were surveyed at Mohammadpur, Lalbagh and Hazaribagh area. The result confirms that the system needs to be upgraded in perceived ease of use and perceived risk factors yet.