Months after introducing a new mechanism to clamp down on electricity theft, crafty householders have still managed to tap into power sources, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has reported.

The electricity provider had started to install concentric neutral cables in some areas to reduce the number of illegal throw-ups. These cables make electricity theft more difficult because a metal casing covers the wires that actually transmit the electrical power.

Melting metal casings

However, head of the Department of Engineering and Technology at JPS, Steve Dixon, said thieves have been melting the metal casings to access the electrical conductors.

The vice-president for customer operations, Sangeet Dutta, said the situation has been exacerbated because thieves often run joined wires for more than 200 yards from power transformer bushings to their homes, which further increases the risk of electrical shocks. "This is highly dangerous," he warned.

Dutta told The Gleaner/Power 106 News that the JPS has been working with the police to curb electricity theft. However, he said there were weaknesses in the law, which provide an incentive for electricity theft.

According to Dutta, at present, the JPS can only recover charges for electricity stolen over a two-year period at the rate it had cost the company to produce it. He believes the law should be changed to allow for penalty charges to be applicable to persons who steal electricity. This is one of the proposals the JPS will be making when its tariff comes up for review at the Office of Utilities Regulation next year.

Losing

Noting that the JPS is was losing 12.7 per cent of the electricity it produces due to theft, Dutta said the problem tends to be acute in countries like Jamaica, where the poor socio-economic conditions exist.

However, he said the company was considering several measures to curtail the practice. These include the relocation of electrical meters from houses to utility poles and the installation of electricity monitors on houses instead.

Dutta said this would make it more difficult for people to interfere with the electrical supply to their homes. The company is also examining a system that would allow it to disconnect delinquent customers from a remote location. The JPS vice-president said if the company gets clearance from the Bureau of Standards Jamaica and the government electrical inspectorate, it would start a pilot programme in loss-prone areas.

Already, the JPS has installed 2,000 special meters called advanced metering information systems to monitor, from a central location, the electricity consumption of large customers. It's also considering installing similar meters for residential customers.

"With this system, once there is a change in consumption pattern, we get a red flag at our offices," Dutta said, adding that a team was then immediately despatched to the location. He said the system has already helped to detect commercial customers who are stealing electricity.