PLN monitors large firms to combat power theft

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Greater Jakarta branch of state electricity company PLN announced on Wednesday that it had installed automatic metering devices at the premises of large companies in the capital in a bid to reduce rampant power theft by those firms.

The devices, branch general manager Fachmi Muhtar said, would automatically send electricity usage information every 15 minutes to PLN's monitoring center.

"After three years, we finally completed installing the new meters at all companies using more than 200 KVA across the capital," Fachmi said.

Fachmi said there were over 4,000 large companies in the Greater Jakarta area currently using the new meters.

The automatic meters replace mechanical ones, which require PLN officers to go to premises to read them.

With the new meters, PLN says it can minimize the possibility of customers tampering with meters and stealing electricity as they could now monitor usage anytime from the monitoring center, he said.

According to head of a joint team for cracking down on illegal electricity connections in Greater Jakarta, Harry Ronald Wattilete, many large companies were involved in stealing electricity from PLN.

"Of 631 large companies examined over the past eight months, at least 139, or 22 percent of them, mostly industrial plants, have been involved in violations," Ronald told The Jakarta Post.

Besides PLN officers, the team is also staffed by officers from National Police Headquarters.

Most power thieves are industrial or commercial enterprises that need a strong and continuous supply of electricity, such as cold storage plants, hotels, plastics plants, discotheques, cafes, malls, printing workshops and outdoor advertising billboards.

Apart from tampering with meters, other common power theft violations included the breaking of meter seals, the changing of fuses to enable use of high voltage power, and the rigging of wires inside powerboxes.

"We impose a range of penalties on these violators ranging from fines to taking them to court," he said.

He added his team was currently prosecuting four companies for serious violations that had caused losses to the state totaling Rp 2.4 billion, including a supermarket (Rp 350 million) and a spa (Rp 601 million).

He said his team would intensify its crackdown on illegal connections in the near future in order to contain soaring electricity theft following the fuel price increase.

"Ballooning production costs following the increase will cause enterprises to seek ways to save money. One way taken by certain companies is stealing electricity," he said.

From estimated total losses of 55,198,921 KWH, the team was now in the process of recouping Rp 33 billion in fines imposed on the power thieves.

PLN said earlier that it would give cash rewards to people who could provide information on companies or individuals that steal electricity power from the company.