The Jamaica Public Service (JPS), frustrated by electricity theft amounting to billions of dollars over the past three years, is now installing what it says are tamper-proof cables in some communities that will immediately cut off electricity to all houses connected to those lines once an attempt is made to steal power using throw-ups.

The JPS head office in New Kingston.

Under this system, 24 houses will be connected to each insulated cable, and according to Sangeet Dutta, JPS vice-president of customer operations, any attempt to tamper with the wire will result in a short circuit, thereby cutting off electricity.

"The minute someone interferes with the line it will affect the rest of the 23 houses," Dutta told the Observer last week in an interview at his office in New Kingston.

He said the measure became necessary because of the heavy losses being incurred by the JPS because of electricity theft.

In 2007, the company lost $4.8 billion of which customers had to absorb $2 billion. In 2006, the losses amounted to $4.1 billion with customers absorbing $1.8 billion, while in 2005, $3 billion was lost to theft and JPS customers were made to pay $1.4 billion of that cost.

Although electricity theft is prevalent in inner-city communities and poor rural neighbourhoods where some residents throw thin cables across JPS lines to receive free power, the company says big businesses are just as guilty of stealing, only that it is done in more sophisticated ways.

Of 600,000 customers, Dutta said 7,100 are referred to as large accounts, contributing to 50 per cent of total energy sales.

He said that in 2007, nine per cent of those customers were found to be stealing energy.

According to Dutta, priority will be given to the installation of the insulated cables in those areas most prone to illegal connections.

However, by the first seven months of 2009, Dutta said, the JPS is expecting to cover nearly 50,000 of its customers.

Additionally, Dutta said JPS will be introducing an automated metre infrastructure (AMI) which will enable the firm to monitor consumers' energy use from JPS offices.

"So if someone tries to tamper with the metre we will be able to see it and back bill them for up to six years based on their consumption pattern," he said.

In addition, he said they will be able to reconnect and disconnect electricity without having to visit the premises.

By the end of 2009, at least 5,000 large accounts are expected to be on the AMI system, and following approval from the Bureau of Standards for the use of the metres, another 20,000 residential customers will be on the system in the first phase.

The metres, which cost US$350 each, will be installed at JPS' cost.
Also in the New Year, Dutta said the JPS will be appealing to the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) for the introduction of a penalty for persons caught stealing electricity.

Arguing that the current regulation is not stringent enough to act as a deterrent for persons who continue this practise, Dutta said that in some countries the penalty is up to 10 times the recovery amount.

The penalty, he said, is used in those countries to fund public projects and suggested that the same could be applied here.

Dutta explained that in Jamaica, total electricity loss amounts to 23 per cent, which is considerably high.

He said loss is calculated through technical loss, which accounts for nine per cent, and commercial loss, which is 14 per cent. He said it is this 14 per cent which is of great concern.

Of this total 23 per cent loss, he said, the OUR only absorbs 15.8 per cent and anything above that has to be absorbed by the JPS.

This loss, he said, greatly hampers the firm's daily operation and curtails its ability to provide the type of service it would want to offer customers.

He said that following a clampdown on theft last year, the JPS recovered about 40 gigowatt hours of energy which translates to over $400 million.

"If we did not discover this theft, loss would have been 30 per cent instead of 23 per cent," he said.