Eskom tackles power thieves
SA economy loses billions every year
ESKOM is increasingly using smart meters and data analytics to identify electricity thieves as it tackles a growing problem that, in the year to March, accounted for 7.55% of its energy losses from 6.19% in 2012-13.
In January, a 15-month toddler was killed in his yard by an illegal electricity connection. In February, three people were electrocuted in separate incidents on the South Coast, apparently after stepping on exposed cables.
In May communities around Gauteng protested in the streets about continued outages resulting from cable theft.
These are some of the human costs of electricity theft. In financial terms, Eskom loses about R5.4-billion of revenue a year and municipalities about R15.2-billion from illegal connections, meter tampering, illegal sales of pre-paid electricity, theft of infrastructure and non-payment, Madeline Kadzinga, the marketing project manager of Eskom’s antielectricity theft campaign, said at a media briefing in Germiston on Tuesday.
Despite perceptions that electricity theft occurs mainly in poor communities, about 39% is by industrial and commercial customers, and 61% by households, including in affluent areas.
Dileep John, Eskom’s project manager for energy and revenue losses, said some businesses were willing to risk paying penalties for electricity theft because the fine was less than the electricity saving.
They did not realise Eskom was also entitled to recover its lost revenue, which could amount to very significant amounts of money.
Eskom is close to completing a programme to install 30 000 smart meters in Sandton and Midrand and has installed 40 000 out of a targeted 180 000 split meters in Soweto.
These are Eskom’s direct customers. Municipalities also have their own plans for rolling out smart meters.
John said Eskom was able to reconcile the electricity fed into a network with its billing system to identify shortfalls. It is currently testing some of the capabilities of smart meters beyond consumption and billing information.
For example, smart meters can send an alarm to the central system as soon as their covers are removed, prior to tampering.
The central system can turn off customers’ power remotely in the event of non-payment.
Using visualisation, or a visible representation, Eskom can monitor a single household’s consumption and compare it with its neighbours to identify customers consuming abnormally little electricity, which may be because they are bypassing the system or the meter is faulty.
When anomalies are picked up, Eskom sends investigators to the household. As a result of recent amendments to the Electricity Act and the Criminal Matters Amendment Act, offenders face penalties and jail terms. — BDLive